If the rumor mill is to be believed, AMD is planning to launch a new graphics card in the near future – potentially as soon as next week – which will be a refresh of the current Polaris GPUs, eking out a tidy performance boost.
This is the word from that ever-present source of GPU speculation Chiphell (via Wccftech.com), which claims that this new offering will be a 12nm spin on the current Polaris-based RX 500 series of 14nm cards.
With the process upgrade and faster clock speeds, the new GPUs should offer a 10 to 15% performance gain, so the theory goes; an appreciable boost for sure.
Note that this is not a whole new process – that comes with the big drop to 7nm Vega GPUs launching at a later date (and quite possibly for the pro market only initially, with gamers potentially looking at a much longer wait for 7nm cards). AMD has promised a 35% performance boost for 7nm compared to last-gen 14nm tech.
Name game
All this is just speculation, mind you, and this is definitely a rumor which needs a liberal sprinkling of salt as a side order.
As mentioned, Chiphell reckons we could see this new tech from AMD just around the corner at the start of October, where we might just be looking at RX 600 series cards poking their heads above the gaming parapet (although exactly what naming scheme will be used is obviously far from clear yet). There may well be a longer wait than this though (assuming any of this comes to fruition, anyway).
If this is true, AMD’s pitch may well be to launch these refreshed cards at a slightly cheaper price point than the RX 500 models, to make for a compelling offering for those out there searching for a more wallet-friendly GPU.
Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX graphics cards may be power-packed, but even the cheapest RTX 2070 will set you back $599 (£569, AU$899) when it goes on sale next month. As for the RTX 2080, that is already available at an asking price of $799 (£749, AU$1,199), so it’s certainly not for the fainthearted budget-wise.
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