Friday, November 25th 2016
AMD Readies Radeon RX 490 for December?
A spectacular rumor doing rounds has AMD sign 2016 off with a new high-end graphics card launch. The company could launch the Radeon RX 490 by the end of the year, according to an Guru3D report. This SKU could either be based on the larger Vega 10 silicon, or be a dual-GPU on a stick graphics card based on a pair of Polaris 10 "Ellesmere" chips. The former seems more likely as multi-GPU support among recent AAA game launches is dwindling. Earlier this year, AMD inadvertently leaked the SKU name Radeon RX 490 on its website.
If the Radeon RX 490 is based on the Vega 10, then it could feature 4,096 stream processors based on the "Vega" architecture, 256 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 4096-bit HBM2 memory interface, holding 8 GB or 16 GB of memory, with a memory bandwidth of 512 GB/s. If instead it is a dual-GPU card based on Polaris 10, then you could be looking at 2x 2,304 stream processors, and 16 GB of GDDR5 memory across two 256-bit wide memory interfaces.
Source:
Guru3D
If the Radeon RX 490 is based on the Vega 10, then it could feature 4,096 stream processors based on the "Vega" architecture, 256 TMUs, 64 ROPs, and a 4096-bit HBM2 memory interface, holding 8 GB or 16 GB of memory, with a memory bandwidth of 512 GB/s. If instead it is a dual-GPU card based on Polaris 10, then you could be looking at 2x 2,304 stream processors, and 16 GB of GDDR5 memory across two 256-bit wide memory interfaces.
112 Comments on AMD Readies Radeon RX 490 for December?
A dual Polaris 10 would have to be cheap to even "compete" with Nvidia. The average performance will be closer to GTX 1070 than GTX 1080, even with all the other disadvantages of multi-GPU.
Intel is having a shit of a time driving into the SOC space due to power and GPU limitations. CPU sales are also slowing due to a lack of improvement between generations pushing out refreshes.
Nvidia is having a shit of a time driving into the SOC space due to power limitations, no x86 ability, and poor ARM performance. Not to mention Pascal is obviously an end of line architecture, so it'll be interesting to see Nvidia can adapt faster than AMD's architectural advantage becomes more apparent to the marketplace over time.
AMD is having a shit of a time because its AMD :P. Conversely though, it also has the easiest path forward as it has decent GPU stock, Zen may fix a decent chunk of its CPU issues, and has quite a few years of SOC development under its belt. If I held (especially Nvidia stocks) atm, I would probably be planning on shorting them, as I think they are pretty overvalued atm, and with a shit 2 years+ of reorientating to market.
Don't forget that devices are diversifying in a BIG way, not just with Shield or Drive PX, but also IoT. The form factor is not just that of a mobile phone.
Did nVidia hire you to say this shit or do you actually believe this?
You will find if you read most of my comments on hardware that I say things because I used the hardware for a time, not because I've read some article somewhere and feel like copy pasting the internets.
As for its Tegra chips, they are buckets of junk. Slow CPU performance, and high power usage. The Shield TV unit being the exception, but mostly because its A: AC driven at that point (so no power usage worries) and in a large enough form factor to dissipate its heat. For the price though, its going against Xbox One's and PS4's for pete's sake though which trounce it. So I'm not even sure you can call THAT a win either.