AMD's upcoming RDNA 4-based Navi 48 GPUs, including the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, will support AV1 encoding, making them a strong contender for content creators and streamers. This is a welcome upgrade compared to the budget Navi 44.
AV1 B-Frame Support
AMD's inclusion of hardware AV1 encoding on the Navi 48 was spotted by HXL (@9550pro) in the GPUOpen Libraries. The "AV1 B-Frame" support refers to a feature within the AV1 video codec that improves both video compression and quality. With this support, the RDNA 4-based Navi 48 GPUs will offer better compression efficiency than older standards like H.264 and HEVC.
Navi 44 Exclusion
Unfortunately, this hardware encoding support is absent on the budget-focused Navi 44, which will be powering the lower-end RX 9000 series GPUs. This means that these GPUs will not be suitable for content creation and streaming. This decision is reminiscent of the RDNA 2 generation, where budget options like the RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 lacked hardware encoders. It's important to note that the Navi 44-based cards are still expected to cost up to $349.
Upcoming Launch
The official unveiling of the RX 9000 series, including the RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, is expected in around a week. The Radeon RX 9070 XT is rumored to offer performance comparable to NVIDIA's upper-mid-range or high-end RTX 40 series cards like the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4080, making it a strong option for gamers and content creators alike.
Alongside the RX 9000 GPUs, AMD is also expected to launch FSR 4 and new Ryzen 9 9000X3D chips, such as the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D, at the same event.
