If you've been wondering where all these news come from, we are in the middle of the Game Developers Conference, which ends tomorrow. AMD's people took the opportunity to create an event with the strange name of “Capsaicin & Cream”, but unlike what happened with Nvidia and its GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, the only firm thing we have so far about Sunnyvale's next hardware is the name: Radeon RX Vega
*This is the rumor control, here are the facts:* AMD's event at GDC 2017 was a sedative. While we can't be too harsh about a developer-oriented presentation, the specialized press expected a bit more. Specifically, what we wanted were advanced details about the Vega cards, hoping to see a duel between AMD's new technology and the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Granted, AMD is not obligated to do anything, and will play its cards when it sees fit, but that doesn't leave us much leeway. What is definitively known so far? Well, let's start with the name…
… yes, that. The name for the new cards will be Radeon RX Vega, and apparently it won't rely on numbers like previous models. Now, rumors go in a different direction, suggesting two types of GPU: Vega 10 and Vega 11. Vega 10 would be the fastest of them, with 8 GB of HBM2 memory, a 2,048-bit bus, and a TDP below 250 watts. In contrast, Vega 11 is a real mystery, except for its 14-nanometer lithography. A benchmark based on an engineering sample revealed that Vega 10 delivers ten percent extra performance compared to the standard GTX 1080, but the announcement of the 1080 Ti changes everything.
When will Vega hit the market? “Second quarter,” some spokespeople said. That places the hardware between April 1 and June 30. In the best case, AMD would only give Nvidia about twenty days of advantage, but something tells us the cards will take a bit longer. Why? The round of rumors yields another piece of data: The Sunnyvale giant would launch in April a general update of its RX family under the 500 series. These are the 550, 560, 570 and 580 models, with variants of Polaris 11, Polaris 10, and Polaris 10 XT at higher frequencies (essentially a rebranding). We'll leave the radar on here. AMD needs to attack the high-end, and the sooner we see Vega, the better. Maybe at Computex...?
