AMD makes FSR 4 upscaling official for Radeon RX 7000- and 6000-series cards — RDNA 3 and RDNA 2 chips will soon enjoy improved visuals

Owners of Radeon RX 9000-series cards have been enjoying the benefits of the company's FSR 4 upscaling tech for some time now, and that feature has officially been exclusive to those products since launch. Gamers with older Radeons were left out in the cold, sparking community outrage—until today. AMD VP Jack Huynh has revealed that FSR 4.1 upscaling will be made available for RDNA 3 cards (RX 7000-series products) in July, and for RDNA 2 cards (RX 6000-series products) in "early 2027."

Community testing of AMD's INT8 FSR 4 code puts the penalty at around 10-20% versus FSR 3 on 6000-series cards, and a lower cost on 7000-series Radeons, but only testing with the full official version will tell the full story. Having said that, even with lower performance scaling, the quality-to-speed ratio of FSR 4.1 is almost certainly worth it.

The company has hinted at open-sourcing FSR4 in the wake of the aforementioned leak, a move that would probably be a good idea for the future of the technology, given how AMD's GPU division seems focused on catching up to Nvidia in the far more lucrative market AI accelerators. A more recent SDK update also suggested that FSR frame generation might get 4-6x multipliers, too, which would give it feature parity with Nvidia's MFG. In any event, making FSR 4 available to owners of older Radeons is a welcome step that will extend the useful life of those products for some time.

The news is certainly welcome for gamers with older Radeons, though technically minded folks already had access to FSR 4's improvements by way of community tools like Optiscaler. AMD initially restricted FSR 4 to RDNA 4's accelerated FP8 hardware, but an FSR 4 source code leak in August 2025 revealed that the company had also created an INT8 version of the AI upscaling model that was compatible with older cards. The community used that source code to enable support for FSR 4 on older Radeons through unofficial tools, creating an ongoing outcry for official support that's now been answered.

It's notable that the upcoming official release will incorporate the latest FSR 4.1 release. That upscaler improves on the original FSR 4.0 on most every front, with less blurring and smearing, better detail retention on thin lines and distant retention, and finer particle effects. There's also significantly less shimmer on object edges (aka improved temporal stability).

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.