All signs point to an AMD roadmap that intends to end the industry dominance long-enjoyed by rivals Intel and NVIDIA. And in taking on the giant competition, AMD is counting on its upcoming flagship CPU and GPU to do the trick - the Ryzen Summit Ridge processors and the Vega 10-powered Radeon RX 500 graphics card series.
AMD's CPU bet will boast of the Zen architecture that so far is proving impressive if recent benchmark results and leaked details are to be believed. Ryzen is packed with immense power and speed that according to BGR the chip will give Intel's Core i7-6700K a run for its money. And while Ryzen is yet to be pitted against the i7-7700K processor, the two colliding head-on promises to be sufficiently interesting with the former likely to prove AMD is no longer a pushover.
Benchmarks results have indicated that the flagship Ryzen chip, likely the SR7, will come out of the box with base clock speed of 3.6GHz while the turbo mode can clock to a high of 4.0GHz, the CPU running on all cores. And if tech enthusiasts so wish, Ryzen is all geared up for overclocking and reach a whopping speed of 5.0GHz in single-core.
But what really could play out on AMD's favor is the pricing. The Ryzen Summit Ridge series will start at $149 for the SR3 and $249 for the SR5. But for more demanding PC gamers, the $349 sticker price of the regular SR7 should prove a steal. Even the $499 SR7 Black Edition will look dirt cheap when compared to the i7-6700K that normally retails for no less than $1000.
On the GPU front, the Vega 10 is generating considerable excitement and justifiable at that. The new graphics tech is said to be the equal if not better than NVIDIA's flagship GeForce GTX 1080, and possibly even perform at par when going against the GTX 1080 Ti.
Tech Spot reported that the soon-to-come out RX 500 series on Vega 10 can run up to 70 frames per second in 4K resolution and the graphics setting flipped to the highest level. NVIDIA's GTX 1080 was observed unable to match, staying below 60FPS under the same taxing environment.
And as if to ensure that hardcore gamers will get the treat they expect from the RX 500 card series, AMD worked closely with game makers for optimal rendering. As a result, "running under Direct X12, Battlefield 1 often performed better on AMD's cards than it did on Nvidia's top-of-the-line GPUs, based on many user reports," BGR said on its report.
And like in the case of AMD against Intel in the CPU arena, the Vega 10 RX 500 cards are projected to lure in buyers with compelling price points. To be sure, the Radeon RX 500 will not sell at a near-steal level but definitely will be more affordable versus the GTX 1080 or any other flagship GPU bets from NVIDIA.