AMD has confirmed that rollout of its Vega 10 GPU series will only start in the first half of 2017, raising questions on whether the upcoming Radeon RX 490 graphics card will be based on the new architecture or will remain Polaris. And as a result, the GPU's rumored release date before the end of 2016 seems unlikely at the moment.
In a report, PC World said that Radeon Vega 10 cards will hit the market within the first six months of next year though the specific debut timing was not provided. The report pointed to AMD chief technology officer Mark Papermaster as source of its information.
Papermaster has indicated too that Vega GPUs are designed for high-end PC systems, at least initially. Compared to Polaris, Vega will significantly boost conventional computing performance and enhance efficient use of energy.
"The GPU is aimed at gaming, virtual reality, and other desktop applications that require high-performance GPUs," PC World reported. The plan for AMD is pair the Vega with the Zen processing chip, which the company said will become widely available in the second half of 2017.
The first batch of Zen chip shipments will boast of eight cores set up optimized for high-end PC gaming, AMD said. For the mass market or budget PCs, the giant chipmaker has indicated that Polaris GPU will remain as its core offering.
The company, however, offered no additional details on the RX 490 that is the subject of rumored release before the end of the year. It remains unclear if the card will be a Vega of Polaris GPU, and if the former is the case then availability is not happening until 2017.
But according to MobiPicker, the RX 490 is most likely a 4K-focused Radeon GPU that will make use of two Polaris cards installed on a package. In such a case, there remains a faint possibility that AMD will go ahead with an earlier release of the RX 490 and that could happen in the next few months.
Now if the RX 490 will prove the direct competitor to NVIDIA's GTX 10-series then game enthusiasts will have to wait a bit more for the card as the touchdown will not happen until, at least, in the early months of 2017.
The same MobiPicker report though is convinced that it's a must for AMD to press the Radeon RX 490 release date within the remaining months of 2016, regardless of the card is Vega or Polaris GPU and if only to effectively challenge NVIDIA's GTX 1080 and 1070 cards.