AMD claims it's 'taking a little extra time' to get 'maximum performance' out of the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT before the GPUs launch in March

pcgamer.com:

Eyes and ears might be turned towards Nvidia's impending RTX 50-series graphics cards right now, but don't forget that AMD's next-gen cards, the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, aren't far off, either. At least not in the grand scheme of things, but they're certainly further off than we originally expected. Now, AMD is giving us more information about why exactly that is.

According to AMD VP and GM David McAfee, the company is «taking a little extra time to optimize the software stack for maximum performance and enable more FSR 4 titles.»

The Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT were expected to launch at CES 2025, but instead AMD didn't give a release date and revealed very few details about the new GPUs. We only got an RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT release date a couple of days ago when McAfee said they'll «go on sale in March».

Aside from speculation about possible changes of plans regarding the GPUs—switching from a chiplet to non-chiplet design—many have suspected that the main reason for the delayed launch was Nvidia's announcement of surprisingly cheap price tags for the upcoming RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti, which the AMD GPUs will almost certainly be competing against.

This reason, at least, is not speculation. AMD's Frank Azor confirmed as much to us at CES, saying the RTX 50-series announcement «went into our decision» to hold off on dishing out the deetz on the new desktop GPUs. Although, Azor clarified that it wasn't the only factor, saying «it isn't any one thing.»

I really appreciate the excitement for RDNA4. We are focused on ensuring we deliver a great set of products with Radeon 9000 series. We are taking a little extra time to optimize the software stack for maximum performance and enable more FSR 4 titles. We also have a wide range…January 22, 2025

There are many reasons why such a thing could cause a delay, least of which being needing time to let the dust settle around the RTX 50-series cards and figure out a new price point. And if this meant reducing the price