AMD teases RDNA 4 as its gaming revenue drops by 69%

There’s been a lot of speculation about the potential release date for AMD’s upcoming RDNA 4 graphics cards. Dr. Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, has just put an end to most of these claims. While initial predictions pinned AMD’s future best graphics cards at the end of 2024, AMD now confirms that RDNA 4 is on track to launch in early 2025. This announcement arrives alongside a steep decrease in AMD’s gaming revenue.

AMD has been quiet about RDNA 4 (or RX 8000 series) for months, but we’ve seen many reports from various leakers who had something to say about the potential release date for these next-gen GPUs. At the beginning of 2024, these claims were fairly optimistic, with some leakers claiming that the AMD Radeon RX 8000 series might launch as early as this summer. That, obviously, did not happen, and as months went by, many adopted a more conservative release window sometime in 2025. Now, thanks to AMD’s third-quarter earnings call, we know that those claims were correct.

Dr. Lisa Su spoke about AMD’s decline in gaming graphics revenue as she revealed that RDNA 4 GPUs are set to be released in early 2025.

“In gaming graphics, revenue declined year-over-year as we prepare for a transition to our next-gen Radeon GPUs based on our RDNA 4 architecture,” Su said, as quoted by VideoCardz. “In addition to a strong increase in gaming performance, RDNA 4 delivers significantly higher ray tracing performance and adds new AI capabilities.”

The comment about a performance increase makes me curious. AMD itself admitted that it’s targeting the mainstream market with its next-gen GPUs in a recent conversation with Tom’s Hardware. Leakers predict that its new flagship may not beat the RX 7900 XTX in performance, so an increase is hard to picture right now — but AMD is planning to improve the performance-per-dollar aspect of its GPUs, so that’s where it might excel.

In its previous earnings call, AMD revealed that its…