AMD exec hints that discrete RDNA 4 GPUs won’t be in gaming laptops anytime soon, leaving Nvidia’s RTX 5000 cards unchallenged

AMD’s Ben Conrad was interviewed by Notebookcheck.net
The exec was asked about the prospects for RDNA 4 laptops in the future
Conrad’s reply was vague, but clearly hints that we shouldn’t expect anything on the RDNA 4 mobile front in the near future

AMD’s RDNA 4 graphics cards are coming to desktop PCs soon, in March 2025, but if you were hoping these next-gen GPUs could be in one of the best gaming laptops in anything like the near future, well, you can seemingly forget about that idea.

This nugget of news comes from an interview that Notebookcheck.net conducted with AMD’s Ben Conrad, who is Director of Product Management for Premium Mobile Client at the company (via VideoCardz).

The tech site asked the following question: “Do you see prospects for RDNA 4 laptops going ahead? Unfortunately, the number of AMD dGPU-based laptop SKUs have been pretty anemic.”

Conrad replied: “Our current graphics strategy is focused on the desktop market with RDNA 4. So, I think you’ll see those types of products first in the future. Certainly, RDNA 4 and future graphics technologies will make it into mobile, whether they be on APUs or future products.”

To clarify, dGPU-based laptops means notebooks with discrete graphics cards, meaning a separate GPU, rather than integrated graphics (built into the processor, which is the solution a good number of laptops run with, due to space constraints and thermal factors).

So, the idea of a discrete mobile RDNA 4 graphics card – the laptop equivalent of the RX 9070 desktop card, say – is not something on AMD’s nearer-term radar. We may get RDNA 4 products for mobile eventually, but Conrad is pretty vague about when that might happen, which makes it sound like it’s something that’s on the backburner for now.

For 2025, then, it looks like the beefy GPUs for gaming laptops are going to be Nvidia’s RTX 5000 mobile graphics cards, and they won’t be challenged by any discrete RDNA 4 offerings.

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Analysis: Not a surprise, really

Is this a big surprise? Not exactly, because Radeon hasn’t been a huge presence in discrete laptop GPUs anyway, and on top of that, RDNA 4 has been a weird generation from AMD. By which I mean on the desktop, it was purportedly cut back to mid-range GPUs as the fastest offerings (rumors point to a high-end solution being on the table initially), with Team Red seemingly focusing on making bigger moves with the next generation. (That could be RDNA 5, or maybe UDNA instead, which is thought by some to be the next step on AMD’s graphics roadmap).

There have also been rumors from some time ago that RDNA 4 is not planned for laptops, even in the form of APUs with integrated graphics, for quite some time. AMD’s big new APUs (including Strix Point Halo, which there’s some major excitement around) are using an integrated GPU that’s RDNA 3.5 (a refresh of RDNA 3, somewhat honed), not RDNA 4.

Indeed, the rumor mill has previously put forward the idea that RDNA 3.5 (or RDNA 3+ as it’s alternatively known) will be used in integrated GPUs in AMD’s APUs for this year, and in 2026.

Of course, all this is very much deep into the realm of speculation, but Conrad’s comments here certainly fit with the idea that RDNA 4 is going to be desktop GPUs only for the foreseeable future.

That doesn’t mean nothing exciting is happening with AMD on the laptop front, of course, because Strix Halo is certainly a huge development, but for thinner gaming laptops with integrated graphics, which are very different beasts to larger notebooks with discrete GPUs. Still, the claim is that the integrated graphics in the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (Strix Halo) APU outdoes the RTX 4070 laptop graphics card, an eyebrow-raising assertion.