AMD has disclosed that its delayed Radeon RX 9000 launch is intended to iron out the software stack for a greater user experience. A safer bet than sending it and praying no one notices. After all, it’s make or break going up againse Nvidia DLSS 4.
Responding to a tweet by Hardware Unboxed regarding the Radeon 9000 delay, AMD’s David McAfee said that Team Red is focusing on delivering a great product, which takes time. The brand wants to ensure that its software stack can extract the maximum performance out of next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs.
Additionally, this will give AMD time to enable FSR 4 support on more games to provide the full experience out of the box. Lastly, this should allow AIB partners and retailers to stock up on Radeon 9000 cards in anticipation of the launch, unlike what seems to be happening to Nvidia.
“I really appreciate the excitement for RDNA 4,” says David. “We are focussed on ensuring we deliver a great set of products with Radeon 9000 series. We are taking a little extra time to optimise the software stack for maximum performance and enable more FSR 4 titles. We also have a wide range of partners launching Radeon 9000 series cards, and while some have started building initial inventory at retailers, you should expect many more partner cards available at launch.”
While previously a brand needed good raw performance to sway users, nowadays the software side plays an important role. From upscaling solutions like DLSS, XeSS, and FSR, to latency enhancements such as Reflex and Anti-Lag, gaming is no longer just about pixel throughput. For instance, AMD’s lack of path tracing acceleration and AI upscaling made them the second choice for many users, only viable when the price gap is wide enough.
Even Intel, which is only on its second generation of discrete GPUs, already offers AI upscaling and good ray tracing support. AMD can’t brush this off as if it’s the only player in the game.
Currently, Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT graphics cards are slated to launch in March at an unknown price. That said, AMD should logically slot its GPUs 5 to 10% cheaper than equivalent Nvidia chips to have a chance. If we consider AMD will to grab market share, we could see an even higher discount over Nvidia, at least when it comes to the mid-range. Wait and see.
