Upcoming AMD Radeon RX 9000 graphics cards are set to use the older PCIe Gen 4 interface like their predecessors. Though unfortunate, this shouldn’t impact performance at all and could keep costs lower.
According to a spec list spotted on British retailer OverclockersUK, the Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics card will be connected to the system via a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. Since it’s the highest GPU in AMD’s RDNA 4 line-up, all remaining models should follow suit. These currently include the RX 9070 and RX 9060, with more likely to come later.
In contrast, Nvidia has upgraded its RTX 50 Series to the latest Gen 5 PCIe, ensuring its powerful GPUs have access to all the bandwidth they need. Thankfully, Gen 4 PCIe should be perfectly fine for the Radeon 9000, even if AMD decides to release a much more powerful GPU. The only excuse for using Gen 5 PCIe on such a chip would be to offer extra M.2 slots or something similar.
If recent performance leaks are to be believed, the top model RX 9070 XT could be on par with RX 7900 XT and RTX 4070 Ti Super – cards that run perfectly fine on Gen 4 PCIe. Even if these early figures are lower than they should be, as stated by AMD’s Frank Azor, there is still plenty of room to scale before needing the newest connectivity. Plus, users won’t feel the need to chase compatible boards or riser cables due to fear of degrading performance.
Interface aside, the spec list also notes a couple of details about RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT. Both are listed as featuring 4,096 shading units, 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and a 260W power target. While possible, these specs seem kind of odd, since the only difference between these models would be frequency. A 190MHz base and 270MHz boost clock difference is too little of a separation.
In any case, Gen 4 or Gen 5, the RX 9000 Series should be just fine. As for the final specs and performance, AMD is supposedly aiming for a January 23 launch, so stay tuned for the verdict.
