AMD May Blitz CES With New RDNA 4 GPUs, Handheld APUs And More

With CES 2025 kicking off next month on January 7th, the hype is starting to build for new products. AMD is one major player to keep an eye on, and there may be some interesting announcements around the bend. While nothing is confirmed, there is a chance we may see new RDNA 4 graphics cards from AMD, along with laptop APUs and some other bits. These would consist of lower powered Krackan APUs for the Ryzen AI 300 family of products, according to a well-known leaker, zhangzhonghao.

Ryzen AI 300 Max for Strix Halo, along with HX Series APUs from Fire Range may also make an appearance at CES 2025, according to a post on Chiphell that was spotted by @Olrak29_, a prominent leaker on X/Twitter. Here's a look...

For desktop CPUs, gamers are eagerly anticipating the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D. The initial release of Ryzen 9000 CPUs was met with some lukewarm responses from consumers, since they provided minimal gains from the previous Ryzen 7000. Various teething issues, such as the 65W TDP of the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X SKUs, did not help matters. AMD eventually updated them to 105W TDPs, which has a positive performance impact. 

Gaming continues to be an area where AMD has an advantage due to its console and handheld APUs. The Ryzen Z2 Extreme, Z2, and Z2G may also make an appearance at CES 2025, which is exciting for handheld fans. These new APU chips process a good uplift for handhelds, which has been a growing market. 

NVIDIA's CEO will be doing the keynote address at CES 2025, with the potential for the anticipated GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs to be announced. AMD has faced strong competition from NVIDIA in the gaming segment, so it will be interesting to see how RDNA 4 pans out. AMD has notably said they are not focusing on high-end GPUs but rather on mass market GPUs. 

A strong mid-range performer, similar to the AMD Radeon RX 7800XT, can help AMD enlarge its user base to attract more developers to optimize for them. CES 2025 is shaping up to be a big show, especially if the supposed AMD announcements end up being true.