AMD's new RDNA 4 gaming-GPU-for-the-masses said to be delayed but will probably still be available before the Nvidia competition

AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT — (Image credit: Future)

A few weeks ago, we reported it looked like AMD's upcoming RDNA 4 graphics cards could arrive at CES and therefore beat Nvidia's next-gen mainstream GPUs to market, the idea being that RDNA 4 isn't going to compete at the high end and Nvidia traditionally only releases top-end variants of any new GPU family at first.

Well, we have an update, and at first glance it's not the best news. YouTube Channel Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) reports that AMD is delaying RDNA 4. But not because there's any problem with the new graphics architecture itself.

AMD is now on record with the basic notion that RDNA 4 is not going after the high end. It absolutely makes sense that the purported Radeon RX 8800 XT will make the likes of, say, the existing RX 7900 XT or RX 7800 XT look like a bad deal. We're expecting it to offer something like RX 7900 XT performance, but for about $500.

MLID's sources say that the Navi 31 GPU, which forms the basis of the likes of the RX 7900 GRE, RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX graphics chipsets, is proving particularly hard to shift, with one "major retailer" claiming to be suffering a "huge" oversupply problem.

It's certainly true that there's no problem buying the likes of a RX 7900 XT right now. Current pricing on Newegg is around $680 for a RX 6900 XT, miles below its original $900 MSRP. There are also numerous different RX 7900 XTs available from several board makers.

All that implies, though does not prove, the notion plentiful if not problematic supply may be accurate. You certainly wouldn't want to be trying to sell a RX 7900 XT for nearly $700 if the new RX 8800 XT matches it for $500.

Anyway, the next question is what sort of delay we're looking at. MLID's sources all point towards a launch in the first quarter of 2025. And you know what, that actually scans with our previous story concerning a CES launch in January.

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Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards — (Image credit: Future)

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So the "delay" angle of the MLID drop is probably in contrast to the traditional GPU launch cycle, which has seen new GPU families roll out around October to December for the last few cycles.

Right now, there's very little reason to think that AMD is about to unveil RDNA 4. You could say that same of Nvidia's upcoming Blackwell generation of GPUs, likely to be branded RTX 50 series.

So to sum up, this all basically scans. AMD's RDNA probably won't launch until early in the new year. It definitely won't be competing at the high end. And unless Nvidia does something very unusual, it should have a bit of breathing space before Nvidia wheels out the likes of an RTX 5070 with which we're expecting the top RDNA 4 cards to compete.

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Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.