Expect Vega GPU Glimpse at AMD’s Capsaicin & Cream Event on Feb. 28
AMD is set to hold a special live-streamed Capsaicin & Cream event for graphics technology at this year’s GDC on February 28, the company announced in a press release today. AMD doesn’t make any specific mention of its the highly anticipated Vega GPU, but we already know that the company has developer sessions scheduled at GDC to talk about graphics-specific optimizations. So it’s likely we’ll be getting a glimpse of the Vega graphics architecture at the event.
AMD Vega GPU Glimpse could be coming on February 28 at GDC
Last year, AMD held its Capsaicin event in March where it showcased then yet unreleased Polaris graphics architecture, as well as detailed the Radeon RX 400 series. The Polaris based cards offer an impressive DirectX 12 performance against Nvidia’s mid-range GeForce Pascal cards, but AMD has yet to tap the high-end gaming segment.
This is where the Vega GPU comes in, which the company might give a glimpse of at GDC later this month. AMD announced via its eventbrite portal:
GDC is where developers not only shine, but share how they create everyday gaming magic from raw code, technology, and imagination. On February 28th, we’re beginning the day with our always-spicy Capsaicin livestream, but fiery feasts are best experienced when accompanied by something cool and creamy to satisfy the palette.
This year at GDC, join us on the 28th for our Capsaicin livestream and our Cream developer sessions – insightful and inspiring talks focused on rendering ideas and new paths forward, driven by game industry gurus from multiple companies including Epic and Unity.
The Capsaicin livestream kicks off at 10:30 AM from Ruby Skye, a feature-packed show highlighting the hottest new graphics and VR technologies propelling the games industry forward. The Cream Developer Sessions will start shortly after at 2:30 PM, with a special talk featuring Unity and Epic.
Built using the latest 14nm FinFET process, AMD Vega GPU will deliver “significant” performance and power efficiency improvements over the current Polaris architecture. The GPU will be offered in two variants: Vega 10 for the enthusiast market and Vega 11 for the mid-range desktop that will effectively replace Polaris 10.
We’ve already seen the high-end Vega 10 in action at the company’s New Horizon event which took place back in December. AMD demoed a consumer version of Vega graphics card running Doom in Vulkan at 4k. The Vega 10 card was equipped with 8Gb of HBM2, and it managed to outperform a GeForce GTX 1080 by 10%.
Not only this, but AMD’s Radeon boss Raja Koduri claims that its Vega 10 GPU will still “beat the pants off the GTX 1080” if it runs OpenGL.
As for the launch, CEO Lisa Su has confirmed that the Vega GPU will ship during the second quarter of 2017, following the launch of Ryzen CPU in early March.
To learn more about Vega GPU specs and features, click here.