AMD’s decision to make FSR 4 exclusive to its new GPUs is a disappointing compromise in a bid to beat Nvidia – I hope it’s worth it

• AMD announces FSR 4’s exclusivity to RDNA 4 Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs
• It’s unclear why the RX 9060 won’t have FSR 4
• Team Red’s main rival Nvidia has made DLSS 4 backwards compatible

There were hardly any doubts over AMD conceding ground to Nvidia at CES 2025, with the unveiling of new GPUs on both sides overshadowed by AMD’s recent shift to a focus on mid-range options, but Team Red has also confirmed that FSR 4 will be exclusive to the new RDNA 4 GPUs – and I’ll be honest, that sucks.

As noted by VideoCardz, FSR 4 will only be available to Radeon RX 9070 series GPU owners, including games that already have FSR 3.1 support, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. This is in stark contrast to FSR 3, which is available for all AMD users and beyond thanks to its open-source design, serving as a huge benefit for handheld gaming PCs as well.

Now, FSR 4’s technology is said to be ‘developed for RDNA 4’ (the hardware microarchitecture of the new Radeon GPUs) which could be the main reason for this exclusivity. Despite this, it isn’t exactly clear yet why the upscaling method is being omitted from other hardware, especially after Nvidia’s announcement of DLSS 4 being available for all existing RTX GPUs – a step in the right direction for Nvidia on this occasion.

Should we be worried about AMD’s position in the GPU market?