AMD’s RX Vega launch confirmed for This Quarter, Performance comparable to Titan Xp
AMD has just confirmed via its Facebook page that the Radeon RX Vega launch is happening this quarter. This means the company’s next generation graphics microarchitecture is nearly ready and should be here in no more than a couple of months.
AMD Radeon RX Vega Launch Date and Performance
Back in February, we learnt that 80% of AMD’s driver team was actively working towards optimizing Vega to ensure the drivers are on-point on the launch day. Thanks to their efforts, the firm has already delivered full OpenGL support for Vega in Linux, and now it’s only a matter of time before it launches the Vega based cards worldwide.
Read More: AMD Vega HBCC to deliver 50% Avg and 100% Min FPS Gains in Gaming
Apart from the RX Vega launch window, the company also revealed an interesting tidbit on its performance. In an AMA session with TomsHardware, AMD’s Desktop CPU marketing manager Don Woligroski said the GPU is being internally tested and the performance they have seen is promising compared with the likes of Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and the Titan Xp.
PandaNation: Why are FreeSync monitors so much cheaper than their G-Sync counterparts? I know you won’t be able to say much, but how does Vega compare to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and the Nvidia Titan Xp? Big fan of AMD, thinking of doing a Mini-ITX Ryzen 5 build. Keep up the good work!
DON WOLIGROSKI: FreeSync is cheaper because it’s an open standard. In many cases a panel manufacturer can make a FreeSync panel by changing their monitor’s firmware and having it meet the spec. For G-Sync, Nvidia charges a licensing fee. Because of this differentiation alone, I think the inevitable future is FreeSync.
Vega performance compared to the Geforce GTX 1080 Ti and the Titan Xp looks really nice.
Previous rumors suggested that Vega cards would deliver performance on par with the GeForce GTX 1080, but this above statement from the AMD representative confirms it will be more than that.
The RX Vega will likely take on Nvidia in the flagship enthusiast segment in terms of both price and performance. That sounds great because it’s been nearly two years since AMD launched a graphics card aimed at that particular market segment.
Radeon RX Vega Specifications
The Radeon RX Vega is AMD’s upcoming graphics solution to address the enthusiast PC market. Built using the 14nm process, Vega will be offered in two variants: Vega 10 and Vega 11.
Vega 10 will be bigger of the two. Based on the early calculations, the chip spans a die size of over 500mm2 featuring two HBM2 stacks, with up to 8GB of memory. However, AMD’s VP and General Manager of Gaming, Scott Herkelman, confirmed last month that AIB partners will have the freedom to ship cards with various memory configurations as well as different coolers and PCBs.
The Vega 10 will be based on the Next Compute Unit (NCU) design and sport 64 Compute Units for a total of 4096 stream processors. While the older Fiji GPU based on the 28nm process also features the same 4096 SPs, higher clock speeds will increase the throughput of the latest chip which, in turn, will help yield better numbers.
Read More: AMD Radeon Vega Graphics Card Pictured In All Its Glory
The details on the smaller Vega 11 are scarce right now, but from what we have heard so far, it’s going to feature GDDR5 memory, instead of GDDR5X, and target the mainstream market under $400.
AMD will reportedly initiate full production of Vega GPUs this month so you can expect more details to be revealed at Computex 2017 being held from 30th May to the 3rd June.