At COMPUTEX 2025, AMD went wide. Instead of drilling into one niche, the company launched an aggressive portfolio refresh spanning gaming, AI development and high-performance computing. The Radeon RX 9060 XT, Radeon AI PRO R9700 and Ryzen Threadripper 9000 series were all introduced with a unifying theme: performance elevated by AI.

But amid the slide decks and buzzwords, one question hangs in the air: how much of this AI push is actually meaningful for gamers and everyday consumers?

Radeon RX 9060 XT: Strong Specs, AI Smoke?

The Radeon RX 9060 XT is a solid-looking GPU for the 1440p gaming crowd. With a starting price of $299 for 8GB and $349 for 16GB, it targets the performance-per-dollar sweet spot that NVIDIA often overlooks. Built on RDNA 4, it brings 32 compute units, a 128-bit memory interface, and up to a 3.13 GHz boost clock. Nothing revolutionary, but certainly competitive.

Ray tracing sees a performance bump, with AMD claiming 2x throughput over RDNA 3. That’s welcome news. But the bigger story AMD wants to tell is its AI story. Features like FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) and the HYPR-RX suite are meant to show that AI and machine learning can elevate gameplay with smoother frames and sharper upscaling.

That sounds good on paper, but here’s the problem: the AI label is starting to feel ornamental. For the average gamer, the difference between FSR 3 and FSR 4 isn’t night-and-day. Machine learning tweaks don’t suddenly transform a game’s visual experience. And AI upscaling, no matter how you frame it, is still compensating for a card not rendering frames natively. That’s fine for performance, but dressing it up as generational innovation is disingenuous.

AMD is marketing AI like it’s the next big shift for gamers, but we’ve seen this before. If it doesn’t directly improve how games look or feel in a tangible way without gimmicks. Aside from that, it’s hard to argue that ML-enhanced frame tech matters to most users.

Radeon AI PRO R9700: Real AI Workload Muscle

Now this is where AI talk actually holds weight. The Radeon AI PRO R9700 isn’t a consumer GPU. With 64 compute units, 32GB of VRAM and a 300W power budget, this is a workstation-class card built for developers who want local inference and AI model finetuning on their desktop.

Second-gen AI accelerators, PCIe Gen 5 and multi-GPU scaling all position it as a serious tool for those pushing real AI workloads. ROCm support on Linux, with Windows support on the way, also expands its usability in developer ecosystems.

This isn’t just AI for the sake of it. This is targeted, relevant performance for researchers and professionals who want to avoid the cost and privacy issues of cloud compute. If AMD can deliver on driver maturity and developer support, the R9700 could earn real ground in pro spaces.

Ryzen Threadripper 9000 Series: Raw Power, No Gimmicks

Threadripper is back, and this time AMD isn’t trying to reinvent the formula. Instead, it’s scaling it up. The PRO 9995WX headlines the launch with 96 cores and 192 threads. It’s flanked by options going down to 12 cores, all sitting at 350W TDP and supported by PCIe 5.0 bandwidth and huge L3 cache pools.

AMD isn’t pretending these are everyday CPUs. They’re not. This is silicon for simulation, rendering, AI training and serious creative workloads. And that’s exactly how it should be marketed.

Where AMD deserves credit is in maintaining a clear line between the HEDT versions and the PRO workstation models. Consumers get overkill performance for local ML or content creation, while enterprise users benefit from AMD PRO tech for secure, scalable deployment.

No AI fluff here. Just performance where it counts.

Hot Take: AI for AI’s Sake?

It’s clear AMD is pushing AI across its product stack not just as a feature, but as a brand strategy. And while that plays well on keynote slides, it raises concerns when translated to real-world consumer value.

Do midrange gamers need AI-accelerated upscaling and frame generation? Maybe. But does it warrant the hype it’s getting? Not yet. Not until the results are visible and consistent across titles. Right now, it feels more like catching up to NVIDIA’s DLSS narrative than actually redefining the experience.

The real gains from AI are in workstations and local development: where Radeon AI PRO and Threadripper shine. But for gamers, AMD’s AI story still has work to do.

Bottom Line

AMD came to COMPUTEX with range, no question. Radeon RX 9060 XT hits a crucial price-performance segment. Threadripper 9000 reclaims workstation dominance with brute force. The AI PRO R9700 offers legit power for devs needing to stay local.

But the AI angle, especially on the gaming side, still feels like a work-in-progress. If AMD wants to sell gamers on ML-enhanced graphics, it needs more than acronyms and clock speeds. It needs to prove that AI isn’t just buzz.

Filed under: News,Tech News - @ May 21, 2025 3:53 pm

Tags: News