The upcoming AMD Radeon RX 490 is said to be Vega-based. (Photo : YouTube/AdoredTV)
The next-generation AMD Vega 10 and 11 GPUs that will power the Radeon RX 500 series will be formally introduced on February 28 or Day 2 of the GDC 2017. The flagship cards' actual release date will happen no later than May and are set to go against NVIDIA's GTX 1080 (and 1080 Ti) and 1070.
The Vega 10 and 11 sneak peeks will be part of the GDC 2017 event, WCCFTech reported, and will allow PC gamers to get a feel of what the RX 500 cards will be capable of. AMD is set to stage "Capsaicin and Cream" within the tech fair to "reveal exciting new details surrounding Vega," the report added.
While the juicy details were held off to date by AMD, Vega is fast shaping up as an enthusiast-class GPU that will be direct descendant to the RX 400 series. In terms of overall engineering, the upcoming RX 500 will be inspired by the Fury line, PC World said in a related report.
However, it is expected that Vega will prove more power efficient than its immediate predecessor, going by with the leaked information that the RX 500 series will make use of both the 8-pin and 6-pin power connectors. In contrast, the Fury X was designed with dual 8-pin connectors, which PC World said spells the big difference between the GPUs.
According to WCCFTech, Vega 11 will be the top mid-range GPU bet of AMD this 2017 and is seen as the direct competition of NVIDIA's popular card - the GTX 1070. But the same report noted that how exactly Vega 11 will perform against its assumed rival remains unclear at the moment.
But not in the case of the Vega 10 that will breathe the top-end RX 500 card into life. Benchmark tests have so far indicated that the GPU has been outperforming the GTX 1080 by up to 10 percent, the report claimed, noting too that the testing only involved engineering samples of the card.
It is expected that things will only get better for the flagship RX 500 in its finalized version, WCCFTech added on its report, hinting too that AMD is hard at work "on optimizing and fine tuning the drivers for Vega."
AMD has indicated that rollout of the Vega 10 and 11 GPU will definitely happen within the first half of 2017 yet according to WCCFTech, sources claimed release date of the Radeon RX 500 card series has been set no later than May this year.
