Promises new hardware, game announcements, and guest appearances, as well as a series as positively terrible puns.
Promises new hardware, game announcements, and guest appearances, as well as a series as positively terrible puns.
SummaryAMD have today announced the Radeon R7 300-series and R9 300-series, due to be released on the 18th June (i.e. this Thursday). Although the silicon of these two series is well known (even if it wasn’t explicitly stated), the R9 390 and R9 390X will include 8GB VRAM as standard which makes them well suited to 4K and VR gaming. They’re priced at $329 and $429 respectively, i.e the the R9 390 is priced identically to the GTX 970, whilst the 390X is $70 less than the GTX 980.
Regarding the new Fiji GPU, AMD’s 2015 lineup will be more comprehensive than we might have thought. At the top-end will be the Radeon Fury X, a compact liquid-cooled design which has a 1.5x improvement in perf/watt compared to the R9 290X. It will run at 50C with the reference cooler, and include just 4GB of HBM memory. The Radeon Fury by contrast is an air-cooled design, but it’s not clear if the Fury has lower specs and performance than the Fury X. The liquid-cooled Fury X will be launched on June 24th priced at $649 whilst the air-cooled Fury will follow on July 14th for $549; note that the NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti currently has an MSRP of $649.
In a surprise move AMD also announced the perf/watt orientated, compact and air-cooled R9 Nano]; also based on the Fiji GPU but with more aggressive power saving to hit a 2x perf/watt improvement over the R9 290X. This new card is due at come point this summer. Also mentioned was a fall release for a dual-Fiji card, a SKU which was shown off in prototype form with AMD’s Project Quantum small form factor system; almost certain to take the overall performance, it will also almost certainly be the most expensive card in AMD’s lineup.
More information on these cards will no doubt be revealed tonight and tomorrow, and keep a look out for Radeon 300-series reviews at the end of this week.
As it happened:
It’s all under way at Twitch.tv/AMD, so tune in now.
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Chief Gaming Scientist Richard Huddy gets the event under way by discussing some of the ways in which this is a new era of PC gaming. 5K and VR of course get a name check, but eSports are the major initial focus.
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AMD introduce the R7 300-series of GPU’s, based on their GCN architecture. Two cards are a part of this series, and the cards both support DirectX12. Also given a namecheck are Frame Rate Target and Virtual Super Resolution, technology which gives you the most out of your GPU horsepower, wasting no frame rate.
Radeon R7 360: An entry-level GPU with up to 2GB GDDR5 memory.
Radeon R7 370: A mainstream GPU with up to 4GB GDDR5 memory.
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Next up is the R9 300-series, starting with the $199 R9 380, which is equipped with 2GB GDDR5 and also available in 4GB VRAM configurations
Meanwhile the $329/$429 R9 390-series cater to the top-end, most especially 4K gaming thanks to the 8GB frame buffer that both the R9-390 and R9-390X feature.
AMD’s Radeon R7 and R9 GPUs will be available as early as Thursday, and partners are bundling their own cooling solutions from the get-go rather than relying on AMD’s reference designs.
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Representatives from Microsoft, Lionhead Studio’s and Stardock take to the stage to talk DirectX12. AMD’s GCN architecture is well positioned to take advantage of Microsoft’s upcoming API, which aims to reduce CPU overhead as well as make graphics processing more efficient. On show is DirectX12 footage of Fable: Legends and Ashes of the Singularity, featuring updated graphics and more complex AI thanks to the resources DirectX12 frees up on systems.
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Discussing VR are Oculus and CCP (creators of the Rift headset and EVE: Valkyrie respectively), and the integral part that AMD’s Liquid VR plays in getting the most out of your AMD-power system for VR. This new technology unlocks low latency modes, even in CrossFire configurations which typically have suffered due to a trade-off for higher frame rates.
AMD’s R9 290 is the minimum specification benchmark for a system utilising the Oculus Rift, and is a likely to be matched or even surpassed by the just-announced Radeon R9 390, which comes with 8GB VRAM as standard. This configuration is ideal for the higher than 1080p resolutions needed in Oculus VR.
Both the Oculus Rift VR Headset and EVE: Valkyrie are due for release in Q1 2016.
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Gaming isn’t the only application for Virtual Reality. GE are here to talk medical applications, including brain imaging on AMD systems with Liquid VR. High end performance is absolutely critical for this new technology.
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Ahh, Fury? No, Project Quantum:
A new very small form factor chassis with two (count them, two) Fiji graphics processors inside. Low noise, extremely high performance. Queue demo reel describing the new graphics processors and High Bandwidth Memory. Could be coming to retail in conjunction with AMD’s premier system integrators.
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Lisa Su comes to the stage to introduce the Fury and Fury X. Fury is air-cooled, Fury X is the liquid cooled SKU, and the Fiji GPU allows 1.5x perf/watt over the R9 290X. It’s not clear if there is a performance difference between the two SKUs, but they should be announced pretty closely together.
In another surprise AMD are also introducing a new SKU, the R9 NANO. A compact (6″ long) air-cooled design for small form factor systems with a modified Fiji at its heart, the R9 Nano offers higher performance than the R9 290X and with far better performance per watt, as much as 2x. Notably the cooling solution is also compact, and it will be interesting to see if AMD have learned their lessons with the stock cooler.
The R9 Nano will launch this summer, perhaps a little after the main Fury and Fury X lines.
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Limited Fury X specifications:
The Liquid-cooled Fury X will be launched on June 24th priced at $649. The air-cooled Fury will follow on July 14th for $549, whilst dual-GPU and R9 Nano SKUs will follow later this year.
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And finally Star Wars Battlefront:
DICE are partnering with AMD to provide high detailed graphics through the Frostbyte engine and unprecedented realism thanks to access to the LucasArts Star Wars prop archive. And to round off the livestream AMD are showing off a tease of PC footage.
Star Wars Battlefront will be available on November 17th and will be available as a preload from Origin.com some days before the release. San Diego Comic Con attendees can play the game on PC, live.
