Speculation about a new AMD Radeon GPU mounts, as Lisa Su CES keynote announced

It's just been confirmed that AMD CEO Lisa Su will be delivering a keynote at CES in January 2026, prompting a wave of speculation that she could be about to lift the lid on AMD's next-gen CPUs and GPUs. Lisa Su wasn't a speaker at CES 2025, but AMD still launched the Ryzen 9 9950X3D there, while also confirming a few details about its Radeon RX 9000 range of GPUs. Does Su's presence at CES 2026 signify a more important announcement? I'm pulling my skeptical face.

With significant buzz about AMD Radeon RX 10090 XT (or whatever it ends up being called) rumors, as well as talk of 24-core Zen 6 CPUs with high clock speeds, there's the potential for Lisa Su to lift the lid on something big here. However, I'm very doubtful that a next-gen AMD CPU or GPU is going to be announced - it's just too early. The 9070 XT only took its place on our best graphics card guide earlier this year, after all, and even Zen 5 will only be 18 months old by the time CES 2026 comes around.

Traditionally, we usually see at least a two-year gap between architectural generations, but I'd love to be surprised, and the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which runs CES, has also mentioned "the advancements driven by Ryzen CPUs and Radeon graphics in AI PCs and gaming" in its statement announcing the keynote.

I don't think we're going to see the official unveiling of RDNA 5 and Zen 6, but what we might see (and "might" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here) is a teasing glimpse of what could be in some of this new tech - some mentions on a roadmap, features AMD expects to implement in the future, a demo of some new gaming graphics tech.

What's more likely, though, is that there's a lot of talk about AI, before AMD announces some new gaming products based on its current-gen tech. We could finally get that 16-core AMD CPU with two 3D V-cache chips, giving it 128MB of V-cache, and a massive total of 192MB of L3 cache. AMD told us it could make such a chip at CES 2025, even if it wasn't likely, and while it would only appeal to a specific niche, it could be a great flagship gaming product.

Maybe we'll also see a new and improved GPUs based on the RDNA 4 architecture. Nvidia is expected to launch the new RTX 5070 Ti Super in this timeframe, as well as the 5070 Super, leaving AMD at a disadvantage when it comes to VRAM. There have been rumors of an AMD Radeon RX 9090 XT for a while, increasing the VRAM to 32GB, and bumping up the clock speeds too, while maintaining the same core GPU specs as the Radeon RX 9070 XT.

While I remain doubtful, I would dearly love to be proved wrong. Wouldn't it be great if AMD suddenly dropped Zen 6 and RDNA 5 on us in January 2026, with the promise of products coming out during the year? I don't think it'll happen, but I'll be on the lookout for any hints of what could be on the way in Lisa Su's keynote.

In the meantime, check out our guide to the best gaming CPU if you're thinking of upgrading your processor now, as well as our best gaming motherboard buying guide.

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