AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs bring major encoding and ray tracing upgrades

AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs improve encoding quality and ray tracing with enhanced specs.

: AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs, including the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT, introduce significant upgrades in encoding and ray tracing. These GPUs promise 25% better H.264 encoding and improvements in ray tracing with a new design featuring two intersection engines. While AMD offers high transistor density, Nvidia maintains an edge with better efficiency. Availability begins March 6th, with board partners like ASUS and Gigabyte participating.

AMD has announced significant advancements in its RDNA 4 GPU lineup, notably enhancing encoding and ray tracing features in the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT models. The GPUs deliver a 25% improvement in H.264 encoding quality and boast new engineering in ray tracing with dual intersection engines, indicating better rendering efficiency in games.

Transitioning to RDNA 4, AMD acknowledges its previous limitations in encoding compared to Nvidia, addressing this gap with better HEVC support and gains in encoding performance. The new GPUs employ a larger Navi 48 die with 53.9 billion transistors, showing high density, although Nvidia's models are anticipated to be faster in rasterization and ray tracing.

With the GPUs expected to be available as of March 6th, AMD partners like ASUS and Sapphire will be producing the models without reference designs from AMD itself. Complementing the hardware, AMD is also launching AFMF 2.1, an updated driver technology to enhance image processing for RX 6000 series and newer GPUs, focusing on improved image quality and AI features.

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