‘Radeon RX 490’ Kicks Off AMD Vega Architecture By First Quarter of 2017

High-end gamers and PC enthusiasts are already preparing for the much-awaited release of AMD's newest lineup of graphics card based on the latest Vega architecture. There are actually four stages of the Vega architecture release, starting with Vega 10. And to kick off AMD's Vega 10-based architecture is Radeon RX 490.

Second Generation High Bandwidth Memory

The release of Radeon RX 490 which is expected by first quarter of 2017 also marks a new chapter in graphics computing. As initially reported by VideoCardz, Radeon RX 490 will be powered by second generation High Bandwidth Memory, also known as HBM2. This HBM2 will be the deciding factor whether or not AMD will finally surpass NVIDIA.

How's that possible? HBM2 is four times faster than GDDRX5, the memory that powered NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1080 and Titan X as reported on iSportsTimes.com. So even if the two NVIDIA graphic cards have higher GB RAM, Radeon RX 490 which will be powered by 8GB HBM2 RAM is too much of a comparison.

Completing the memory specifications of Radeon RX 490 are as follows: 8GB HBM2 RAM, 4096-bit Bus Width, and 716.8GB/s memory bandwidth. As for the graphics card's Clock, it is reportedly going to have 1200MHz Base Clock reaching up to 1500MHz Boost Clock and Effective Memory Clock of about 1400MHz with Compute Power (FP32) of 9,830 GFLOPS.

Other Vega Architectures

While only Radeon RX 490 is the only known Vega 10 graphics card, rumors say that there will be about two or three more to come out at a later date though it could still fall within the first quarter or 2017. These cards will also be based on 14nm GFX9 architecture just like Radeon RX 490.

In addition, these cards will have a capacity of up to 16GB HBM2 RAM and a bandwidth of 512GB/s. The Thermal Board Power (TBP) is set at about 225W.

Come second quarter of 2017, Dual Vega 10 will be released. However, specifications are still kept under wraps though it is believed to have 300W TBP. Vega 11, the presumptive successor of Polaris 10, is also scheduled to be release next year. The only specification revealed is that it will also have the same build of 14nm.

The last on the Vega architecture menu is Vega 20 which is reportedly going to have a 7nm GFX9 architecture. Based on the name alone, the specifications are doubled - 32GB HBM2 RAM with up to 1TB/s of bandwidth memory, and 64 Compute Units. TBP is reportedly around 150W which means a more powerful cooling system can be added by resellers.