If you were hoping to take advantage of AMD FSR 4 using an older Radeon graphics card, then I’ve got bad news for you. Unfortunately, the upscaling technology will be exclusive to new RDNA 4 GPUs for the time being, but the silver lining is that it may change in the future.
Talking to El Chapuzas Informatico, AMD’s chief of gaming marketing Frank Azor acknowledges that the feature is still a work-in-progress. AMD Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics cards have an easier time running FSR 4 thanks to their leverage of AI processing, which older Navi GPUs lack.
This explains why AMD was reluctant to share meaningful information about its new GPUs. Waiting for Nvidia to show its cards to counterattack is a good call, all while avoiding the anger of RX 7000 owners who are likely to feel the sting, given AMD’s penchant for backwards compatibility.
Thankfully this exclusivity seems to be temporary, probably due to time constraints. “It’s possible We can optimise it so that it works in the RDNA 3 architecture. And we are, we want to do it, but we have work for now,” says Frank [Translated].
However, while this indicates that RDNA 3 / RX 7000 has what’s needed to run these AI upscaling tasks, RDNA 2 and older devices may be out of luck. Whether we like it or not, AMD is at the whim of the technological gods when it comes to compatibility of emerging technology.
As for those who plan on getting one of AMD’s shiny new RX 9070 / RX 9060 cards, Frank said that they will be very competitive and worth the wait. He also explained that the absence of high-end models should allow the mid-range to reach lower price targets as the team has fewer chips to create and support. But, don’t expect dirt-cheap GPUs.
Frank said RDNA 4 is going to offer powerful graphics cards below $1,000, but not as low as $300. Precisely, AMD will target a balance of power and price similar to the RX 7800 XT and RX 7900 GRE. So you can expect around $499 to $550 MSRP, which is what rumours are suggesting.
Now the question is, will FSR 4 deliver the same quality and uplift on RDNA 3 GPUs when it releases? The way Frank worded it – albeit translated, the new upscaler may run worse on RDNA 3 cards. To find out, we will have to wait some time as the Radeon team is occupied with the RX 9000 launch.
