RTX 50 and the new Radeon: What to expect from GPUs for 2025?

The year 2024 was not an incredible year in terms of graphics cards, but it had its positive aspects in terms of receiving interesting versions. However, the scenario for 2025 should be very different, and the expectation is that Nvidia and AMD will have both feet in the door in the new year.

Main speculations suggest that major launches will take place in the first quarter of 2025, but we may have surprises throughout the year. Keeping this in mind, TecMundo has prepared a compilation containing all the important information about the graphics cards that should arrive in stores within the next 365 days.

GeForce RTX 50

It’s hard to start a graphics card list without mentioning Nvidia. The green giant launched SUPER models at the beginning of 2024 to update its portfolio, but now the story continues with the next generation GeForce RTX 50, which should be a rather aggressive launch.

The highlight of the future next generation is the GeForce RTX 5090, arguably the flagship of the series. The model should have one of the maximum implementations of the new Blackwell architecture to increase the potential of the GPU with a significant generation leap compared to the current RTX 4090.

Regarding technical specifications, leaks indicate that the 5090 will have a chip that is at least 20% larger than its predecessor and will have a stream multiprocessor count of 170, while the 4090 has 128. In terms of memory, the GPU can have up to 32 processors. GB VRAM in the latest GDDR7 protocol, with very high bandwidth and excellent speed.

Interestingly, the RTX 5090 can consume 600W alone, which requires a very powerful power supply to handle the pressure. Apart from that, the price should not be friendly at all and it would not be surprising if the value exceeds the USD 2,000 mark (about R$ 12,000 in direct conversion, excluding taxes).

Along with the powerful RTX 5090, Nvidia was also preparing for the launch of the slightly weaker but still very powerful RTX 5080. The RTX 50’s power trio would be capped by the RTX 5070, a high-performance model targeting Quad HD at high frame rates or 4K, while the other two cards would be aimed at 4K resolution only.

If three GPUs already seemed enough, new rumors indicate that Nvidia will also offer the new GeForce RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti. The first, more basic model will come with 8GB of VRAM and will focus on running games at 1080p resolution. the second will have 16 GB and target 1440p resolution.

There is also a strong expectation that GeForce RTX 50 laptops will be announced, but it is not known whether this move will take place at the beginning of the year, during CES 2025 or in the following months.

The regular RTX 50 for desktops is expected to be released between January and March, but plans may still change – at least for weaker models.

Radeon RX 8000 XT

On the AMD side, things are already different. Although there are some leaks about these models, they are on a smaller scale. In fact, many rumors that the red team will focus on the middle segment in the new generation and will not release enthusiast graphics cards leave the way for competition open.

The company has already confirmed its participation at CES 2025, and this seems like the perfect stage for the announcement of the new Radeon RX 8000 XT. The base model should be the Radeon RX 8800 XT, a GPU with the new RDNA 4 microarchitecture that delivers up to 45% gains in select games compared to the previous generation.

According to speculation, the RX 8800 XT will compete with the RTX 4080 SUPER series, not Nvidia’s RTX 50. This means that the model should aim for Quad HD resolution at high frame rates or 4K resolution at 60 FPS, which is a premium product whether you like it or not.

There aren’t a lot of details about the rest of the launches, but initially AMD is likely to stick with the RX 8800 XT and perhaps an RX 8700 XT focused on Quad HD. For the rest of the year, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the company launch models like the Radeon RX 8600 for 1080p gaming at events like Computex or Gamescom held between June and August.

More Intel Arc?

While AMD and Nvidia have almost certain announcements for 2025, Intel hasn’t given many clues yet. The main speculation was for the Intel Arc Battlemage to be released, but these models took the form of the new Arc B580 and B570 announced a few weeks ago and were very well received.

So the possible speculation is that Intel will continue to use products in this series and perhaps release cheaper GPUs to run games in Full HD. It is also possible that the company will announce news about the Xe3 microarchitecture, which may appear in the integrated graphics cards of Panther Lake generation laptops throughout the year.

In any case, it will be very interesting to see what Intel will show in 2025 and how the public will react to these launches, especially those that look very good.