AMD says 'the performance data out there for RDNA 4 is completely inaccurate'
In a cosy backstage chat, post-AMD CES keynote, David McAfee told us that everything you've heard about RDNA 4 performance is «completely inaccurate». McAfee and fellow AMD exec, Frank Azor were explaining the absence of either new RX 9070 or RX 9070 XT graphics cards from the keynote, fielding our questions about the new GPUs, new naming scheme, and AMD's priorities for this «gamer-first» new Navi 4 architecture.
Though McAfee's assertion about the inaccuracy of the rumoured RDNA 4 GPU performance could be a bit of a double-edged stabby thing. The last rumours we heard were suggesting a 45% uplift in ray tracing performance and rasterised frame rates on par with an RTX 4080 Super, which would be great. If it's more than that I'm going to be stunned and saddened if it's less.
«The performance data that's out there for RDNA 4 is completely inaccurate,» says McAfee, before Azor chimes in: «The other thing I would tell you is nobody, nobody has the final drivers, so how can the data be accurate? Not even the card manufacturers have it.»
So, as McAfee says, «don't trust everything you read on the internet.» Except this. Cos, y'know, you can trust me.
But we will know all about the new architecture later in Q1, as Jack Huynh noted while quickly glossing over comments about RDNA 4 from Microsoft's Matt Booty in a video appearance in the keynote.
«We absolutely love the gaming community,» says Huynh, «and we look forward to telling you more about RDNA 4 and FSR 4 later this quarter. Now let's shift gears to AI PCs…»
Yes, we were expecting to hear a bit more about AMD's upcoming RDNA 4 graphics cards at CES this year, and we did indeed get some deets out of a pre-briefing ahead of the show, but the new RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT were notable by their absence from the Jack Huynh's CES keynote.
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