For those of you holding out some tiny sliver of hope that the new Range of AMD Radeon RDNA 4 GPUs would come out just before the end of 2024, we’ve got some bad news for you. That’s because AMD has confirmed that it is “on track to launch the first RDNA 4 GPUs in early 2025.” The announcement comes directly from the company’s CEO, Lisa Su, who made the statement during AMD’s latest earnings call.
While perhaps a little disappointing, Su does at least confirm the “early” time frame for the launch. Plus, this ultimately isn’t a surprise, as many months of rumors have steadily pointed toward both AMD and Nvidia being set to launch their newest contenders for a spot on the best graphics card guides of the world at some point next year. There had been a brief period where hope had risen that AMD might look to beat Nvidia to the punch and launch its new GPUs this year, but that expectation has long since dwindled.
As for when in 2025 we can expect RDNA 4 and Nvidia’s rival Blackwell gaming GPUs to arrive, rumors have long hinted at them both being announced at the CES 2025 tech trade show in early January 2025, and this announcement fuels that fire. Nvidia is set to have a keynote speech there where it’s expected to announce the likes of the RTX 5090.
Meanwhile, AMD doesn’t yet have a major keynote scheduled at the show, but the latest RX 8000 rumors point to AMD announcing a slew of products at CES. These reportedly include its new RDNA 4 GPUs, along with a new AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme CPU aimed at a new generation of gaming handhelds, such as the Lenovo Legion Go 2. The new AMD Strix Halo laptop CPU, with its ultra-powerful integrated graphics, is also rumored to be unveiled at the show.
AMD has already confirmed that it has abandoned competing for the highest end of the graphics card market, so we’re not expecting it to unveil a product to compete with the likes of the Nvidia RTX 5090. Instead, it’s expected that a Radeon RX 8700 XT, Radeon RX 8800 XT, or Radeon RX 8900 XT will instead compete with a possible Nvidia RTX 5070 for overall performance. AMD is expected to offer significantly improved ray tracing performance with these new GPUs, though, potentially making them far more competitive overall.
Whatever happens, we’ll be on the show floor at CES 2025 to report back on exactly what both companies have in store. And while we all wait, you can find out what we know so far about AMD RDNA 4’s big competition in our Nvidia RTX 5000 guide, where we share everything we know so far about the forthcoming Blackwell gaming GPU lineup.