AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT Preview: New RDNA 4 Brand Strategy, FSR 4 AI Upscaling And More
For now, here's what we know: the Radeon RX 9000 series is changing up the branding while introducing the RDNA 4 architecture, which arguably sets the stage for future generations of Radeon GPUs. We'll talk about the branding in a second, but let's go over what we know so far about RDNA 4.
AMD spoke to us in vague terms about its new GPU architecture. We know that it's going to have radically improved ray tracing performance, and that where the AI accelerators on RDNA 3 went largely unused, the AI accelerators this time around are much more prominent. The company also says that it has done a lot to improve on its media engine; AMD's video encoder is always a favorite area of criticism for fanboys.
Indeed, arguably a bit late to the party, AMD is fully embracing AI in its rendering pipeline with the new version of FidelityFX Super Resolution, or FSR. We were promised this feature back in September, and at that time we hypothesized that the new AI-powered FSR would appear at CES. Well, here we are, and here it is. It seems like the technology will debut in the latest Call of Duty title, Black Ops 6.
A key caveat is that FSR4 was developed in conjunction with RDNA 4 and as a result it seems like it is only going to be compatible with the new cards. AMD specifically told us that it was developed for the new machine learning architecture of RDNA 4, although the company did not explicitly say that the new tech can't be used with, say, RDNA 3 GPUs. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out.
One of the cooler apps that a GPU vendor has released recently is Intel's AI Playground for its Arc GPUs. This is a very convenient tool that allows owners of discrete and integrated Arc GPUs to make use of local AI processing in a very direct and immediate way. Well, AMD apparently agreed, because it is going to debut a tool, apparently built into its driver software, known as Adrenalin AI.
Using Adrenalin AI, you will be able to generate images from text prompts, summarize documents you have stored on your machine using a locally-hosted LLM, and ask said LLM questions about AMD products and technologies. AMD says that the goal of this feature is to give Radeon owners a taste of the AI capabilities of their shiny new GPU. We're curious to see how useful it actually is, though, especially considering that the AI models in use will likely add multiple gigabytes to the already-bloated driver download. A separate app might be the smarter play here, AMD.
We mentioned that AMD is revising its branding this time around, and here's the slide explaining that. AMD is changing its Radeon branding for two reasons: to synchronize with the Ryzen team, and to make its GPUs look better in comparison to NVIDIA's. We tease, but it's not entirely a joke; AMD itself notes that it wants to simplify "direct competitor comparisons." So, instead of 9700 XT, we have the 9070 XT.
That branding does imply that this isn't the fastest GPU in the Radeon RX 9000 series, but we wouldn't hold our breath waiting for that top-end part because from everything we've heard through the grapevine, such a GPU simply doesn't exist. AMD may try again for the crown next time around, but the goal this generation is clearly to capture market share, not benchmark crowns in the flagship space.
At the time of this writing, before the actual announcement, we don't have really any details at all on the cards. Given that this is marked down as a "preview," AMD didn't provide any specifications nor did the company give out any performance estimates as the Red Team is usually so ready to do. Hopefully that information comes out on stage; if so, we'll update this post accordingly.
