Recap: Modders have known since last year that AMD was developing a version of FSR 4 that supports older Radeon graphics cards. Still, despite growing outcry from RX 7000 and RX 6000 owners, the GPU manufacturer remained silent about its plans to release the AI upscaling model until this week. Early testing indicates that, while performance savings are significantly smaller than on RX 9000 cards, the image quality enhancements remain worthwhile.

AMD's gaming and graphics VP, Jack Huynh, recently confirmed that Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards will begin supporting FSR 4.1 this summer, with support for RX 6000 arriving in early 2027. The company's presentation confirms what recent leaks indicated: the older GPUs will rely on INT8 processing, a slower alternative to the RX 9000 lineup's FP8.

Similar to Nvidia's DLSS and Intel's XeSS, AMD's FSR 4 uses machine learning to upscale games with image quality far superior to FSR 3. While DLSS has used ML since the RTX 3000 series launched in 2020, FSR 4 currently only supports RX 9000 cards, which began shipping last year.

Last summer, leaked source code revealed a version of FSR 4 that runs on older Radeon models, which modders promptly tested. TechSpot's analysis shows that, while FSR 4 carries a performance penalty compared to FSR 3, it looks far better and still runs better than native rendering.

The INT8 version on RX 7000 and 6000 cards also looks close enough to the FP8 version on RX 9000 that most users will struggle to tell the difference. Whether AMD has optimized the technology beyond last year's leaked source code remains unclear.

While bringing the new upscaler to older GPUs might give users one less reason to upgrade to RX 9000, the current market already discourages upgrading. Component shortages due to the AI boom and the conflict in Iran have inflated GPU prices, making older cards a more sensible buy. With Nvidia possibly planning to relaunch the RTX 3060 this year, FSR 4 could make RX 7000 and 6000 cards more competitive against it.

AMD's announcement also raises the question of whether the feature will support handheld gaming PCs and Valve's upcoming Steam Machine. The Steam Machine's custom dedicated GPU uses RDNA 3.5, a refresh of the architecture found in RX 7000 cards, and is expected to rely heavily on FSR 4 to achieve 4K gaming.

Meanwhile, most handheld gaming PCs, including the Steam Deck, feature APUs based on RDNA 2 (RX 6000 GPUs), RDNA 3, and RDNA 3.5. Early testing by modders indicates that they could support INT8 FSR 4.