'This is the strongest PC portfolio we've had': AMD schedules next-gen GPUs for early 2025

AMD will launch its next-gen PC GPUs with RDNA 4 technology in early 2025, AMD chief executive Dr. Lisa Su said Tuesday. They will be part of what she called the strongest PC portfolio in the company’s history.

Su delivered the roadmap update during prepared remarks to analysts, describing the company’s results during the third quarter of 2024.

Roughly half of AMD’s revenue comes from its data-center products, so Wall Street analysts focused most of their attention on that part of the business. AMD’s GPUs fall within its Gaming business, where revenue fell 69 percent to $462 million. That’s because the segment also includes AMD’s GPUs for gaming consoles, and Microsoft and Sony alike decreased the amount of inventory they had on hand.

PC graphics also declined, as card makers and PC vendors began holding off, as well, anticipating AMD’s next-gen products. “In addition to a strong increase in gaming performance, RDNA 4 delivers significantly higher ray-tracing performance and adds new AI capabilities,” Su said. “We are on-track to launch the first RDNA 4 GPUs in early 2025.”

An AMD representative confirmed that this was the first time AMD had stated the early-2025 timetable for the new GPUs.

Although AMD hasn’t confirmed it, reports indicate that the chip will be known as the RX 8000 GPU, otherwise known as Navi 48 or Navi 44. Instead of attacking the “top of the stack” in terms of performance, they’ll likely be aimed at midrange price and performance points. Given that AMD is publicly confirming that they’ll arrive in early 2025, however, we’d expect to see them at the CES 2025 show in Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, AMD has already announced a launch date for its next gaming/content-creation GPU, the Ryzen 9000X3D, on Nov. 7. Revenue already grew 29 percent year-over-year on strong demand for AMD’s latest Ryzen 9000 desktop and Ryzen AI 300 notebook processors, Su said.

AMD’s Consumer business is usually strongest in the second half of the year, Su said. But with the combination of AMD’s existing Ryzen parts, plus the upcoming X3D chip, Su said she expects AMD to perform even better. “So I think the combination of those two have given us, let’s call it a stronger than the normal second half of the year,” Su said.

“I think the main point is, this is the strongest PC portfolio we’ve had… in our history, I think, across desktop and notebook,” Su said.

That momentum should continue into 2025, she added, with expectations that the PC market will grow in the mid-single digits. It will be helped, in part, as consumers migrate out of Windows 10, which ends support in October 2025.

What does all this mean? A crazy, crazy CES 2025. Nvidia is already expected to announce its next-gen “Blackwell,” or RTX 5000, cards at the show. Add to that AMD’s own rival GPUs, plus whatever is in store on the CPU front, and 2025 will begin with a bang.

Correction: The first sentence of this story originally stated that AMD would launch RDNA 5 GPUs in January. They are in fact RDNA 4 GPUs, as the rest of the story states correctly.

Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld

Mark has written for PCWorld for the last decade, with 30 years of experience covering technology. He has authored over 3,500 articles for PCWorld alone, covering PC microprocessors, peripherals, and Microsoft Windows, among other topics. Mark has written for publications including PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science and Electronic Buyers’ News, where he shared a Jesse H. Neal Award for breaking news. He recently handed over a collection of several dozen Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs because his office simply has no more room.

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