The upcoming AMD Radeon RX 490 is said to be Vega-based. (Photo : YouTube/AdoredTV)
Fresh evidence leaked out this week suggesting that AMD intends to introduce the rumored Radeon RX 490 in the next few weeks, possibly with the expected unveiling of the chipmaker's Zen-based Summit Ridge processing chips. The flagship graphics card could be out as early as December 13.
That will be the same day that AMD will pull the curtain off the Summit Ridge family of processors in an event dubbed as New Horizon, which according to WCCFTech will be livestreamed for the world to see. And likely to be revealed too is the Radeon RX 490 as one online retailer announced that the GPU is definitely hitting the market in the second half of 2016.
And it makes sense that latest from AMD will debut at the same with the Zen CPUs, the report added. For one, the timing is in line with the rollout schedule mentioned above and AMD has no known event lined up in the coming months, not even for the CES 2017 trade show in January.
So December is most likely the month to witness all the powers packed with the AMD flagship GPU and it promises to be a beast that will certainly more than impress.
Details known so far indicate that the RX 490 is either a dual-GPU that is based on Polaris 10 architecture or of the Vega 10 design. But it is more of the former, if WCCFTech is to be asked, marinating that cards designed for the latter is not expected to flex their muscles until next year.
The RX 490 is expected to retail in various editions and the most premium of the class will come in "bus width greater than 256 bits," the report added.
With the RX 490, AMD is said to be targeting PC gamers hooked on titles with 4K resolution options as well as the emerging virtual reality of VR segment. For good measure, the report noted that RX 490 fully supports Crossfire set up both in single and dual chip configuration.
In recent news, it was suggested that the RX 490 in Crossfire function will easily outperform NVIDIA's GTX 1070.
But the more exciting news now is that AMD will directly challenge NVIDIA's GTX 1080 both in performance and pricing. The report by WCCFTech maintained that on release date the Radeon RX 490 will be priced competitively against its close rival or possibly slightly cheaper than the GTX 1080's asking price of $600 a pop.
