AMD Radeon Vega Graphics Card Pictured In All Its Glory
At this CES 2017 in January, AMD showcased their next generation Vega GPU for the first time. The company exhibited an engineering sample of a Radeon Vega graphics card running in a PC alongside the Ryzen CPU.
At the time however, the important areas of the card were still covered in tape, and thus the connections on the slot and additional power connections remained hidden. The curtain was pulled back at Tuesday’s RYZEN Tech Day.
Read More: AMD Ryzen 7 CPU + Radeon Vega GPU running Star Wars Battlefront 4K Ultra
Here’s What Lies Beneath the Taped Off Radeon Vega Graphics Card
A system featuring a Ryzen processor and a Radeon Vega graphics card was on display again – but this time in a case of glass with tape off for everyone to take a better look at the engineering sample.
The card uses an 8+6-pin power connector, proving that Vega is indeed more power efficient than the Fury X, which uses dual 8-pin connectors. This allows the card to draw 300W power, according to the ATX specification together with 75W, which is supplied via the PCI Express slot.
You can also note that the PCB is relatively larger than that of the previous Fiji cards, but that is mainly because the USB 3.0 host connector is still in place in the GPU package. This is something that RTG uses for tweaking the card in the development phase; we can expect the GPU to be shorter when it hits the shelves.
Looking at the back of the card, the GPU appears to be housing a rather larger heat sink to keep Radeon Vega cool, at least that is what we can assume from the looks of the reference design.
Finally, the I/O panel houses an HDMI, and three DisplayPort connectors.
AMD Radeon Vega Preview Coming on Feb 28, Launch Planned for May
AMD is set to showcase their Radeon 500 series based on the next-gen Vega GPU during an exclusive press event, titled Capsaicin & Cream, at GDC 2017 on February 28. The event will be hosted by Radeon Technologies Group’s Senior VP and Chief Architect Raja Koduri who will reveal exciting new details surrounding Vega.
From what we know so far, AMD Vega architecture will be built using the latest 14nm process technology that will offer a significant boost in terms of performance and efficiency. Vega GPUs will be offered in two variants, the Vega 10 and Vega 11.
Vega 10 will be the bigger of the two and is set to take on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 as well as the upcoming GP102-based GTX 1080 Ti. We’ve already seen the GPU in action, beating the GTX 1080 by 10% whilst running on ordinary 300 series Fury drivers.
There’s not much we know about the smaller Vega 11 chip, except that it will effectively replace the current Polaris 10 and deliver GTX 1070 levels of performance.
The Vega-based Radeon 500 series is expected to launch in May. You can learn more about AMD Vega GPU specs, performance and price rumors in this article.
