AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 GPUs Revealed?

Are AMD skipping Radeon 8000-series branding and copying Nvidia’s naming scheme?

Two new AMD Radeon GPUs, the Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070, have been listed on Grosbill Pro. These two GPUs appear to use AMD’s next-generation RDNA 4 graphics architecture, which will be revealed at CES 2025 in January.

With this new generation, AMD is making two strange decisions. First, AMD is skipping their Radeon RX 8000 naming scheme. Second, AMD appears to be copying Nvidia’s GPU naming scheme. Note that this listing includes the Radeon RX 9070 XT. AMD’s traditional naming scheme would call this GPU the Radeon RX 9700 XT.

This is not the first time AMD has copied its competitors’ product naming scheme. Since the introduction of Ryzen in 2017, AMD’s motherboard chipsets have used names similar to Intel’s. AMD’s new 800-series AM5 motherboards are likely called 800-series products because Intel’s newest chipset is also an 800-series product line. AMD skipped over 700-series chipset names to move to the 800 series for no reason other than preventing Intel from using a higher number. Can you think of another reason AMD’s flagship motherboard chipset isn’t called X770?

Radeon RX 9700 XT  and RX 9700 GPU listing – Grosbill, via @momomo_us

Is AMD’s new RX 9070 XT branding a good idea?

Honestly, I think it is silly for AMD to change its GPU naming scheme like this. The jump from Radeon 7000 to Radeon 9000 should signify a large leap in performance. If AMD does not achieve this, the 9000 series will be seen as a disappointment. AMD should only set the bar high if they can meet those expectations.

As for calling their GPU the RX 9070 XT and not the RX 9700 XT, it seems clear that AMD wants their newest GPUs to seem more familiar to gamers familiar with Nvidia’s RTX GPU branding. That may be a good idea, but it only works for one product generation. After all, what comes after the RX 9000 series? Will we see an RX 10070 XT next?

You can join the discussion on AMD’s rumoured RDNA 4 naming scheme on the OC3D Forums.