Dec 22, 2024 | Updated: 11:35 AM EDT
Mar 02, 2017 09:33 AM EST
During CES 2017, AMD officially revealed the first details about its Vega GPU architecture. Set to launch later this year, yet, there is still plenty that we don't know about Vega.
When exactly Vega GPUs will be released, for how much, and how well they'll actually be specced- mainly against the Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti- are all still questions around AMD Vega. Unluckily, it looks like it will be a little while longer before those questions are answered officially.
AMD held a live stream event during GDC 2017, on February 28, its second annual "Capsaicin" event. At the event, AMD did share some more tidbits regarding the Vega GPUs, not concrete details were given regarding price, release date or features, but yes, AMD Ryzen received even less attention.
Tech Radar did learn that Bethesda plans to work with AMD to ensure that its games take every advantage of Vega and Ryzen technologies, that is from how its games develop their benefits to adopting them into its server technology. Following its 2017 Capsaicin live stream event, AMD has managed to maintain predictably mute on exact specs for Vega GPUs.
AMD claims that this era of Vega GPUs will also kill the GDDR5 memory for a new format known as HBM2 (high-bandwidth memory), which AMD claims brings a 50% smaller footprint. In that sense, Vega chips will be more equipped to handle computer tasks than ever, specifically 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit operations in each clock cycle, which will give the benefits beyond video games.
Reports also mention that AMD's new Pixel engine will debut in Vega, which is now moved to a client of the GPU's L2 memory cache. This will enable it to handle graphics workloads that perform frequent read-after-write operations with less overhead on the rest of the GPU.
However, we still know next to nothing about how much the new Vega products will cost when they land later this year. But if we go by predictions then the current Radeon RX 480 lineup starts as low as $169, with the Radeon R9 Fury X still going for a cool $389. Thus, this information says that, if AMD wants its Vega GPUs to compete with the Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti, as well as offer a range of options similar to that of the new RX series, then possibly it is highly expected to stay GPUs priced within this range.
Wccftech reports the Vega Architecture Key Features that includes 4x Power Efficiency, 2x Peak Throughput/Performance Per Clock, 2x Bandwidth per pin, Next Generation Compute Engine, Next Generation Pixel Engine, High Bandwidth Cache, 8x Capacity Per stack (2nd Generation HBM), 512TB Virtual Address Space, Rapid Packed Math, Primitive Shaders and the Next Generation Compute Unit optimized for higher clock speeds.
According to Smarter analyst, AMD has also announced that it's forthcoming Vega architecture-based GPUs have been selected to power LiquidSky. The LiquidSky will enable the gamers around the world to enjoy the extraordinary power of Vega from anywhere. "LiquidSky's game streaming service delivers the very best visuals, detail, and pure performance, regardless of the device you're using," claimed Ian McLoughlin, LiquidSky's co-founder, and CEO.
AMD's Vega is said to release between April 1 and June 30. High-end GPU will hopefully be cheaper than Nvidia's lot.
