AMD Radeon RX 500 Cards Release Date Rumors: Reports Indicate Mid-April 2017 Launch
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will be unveiling the Radeon RX 500 series of graphics cards in mid-April, according to reports. The new cards are reportedly based on an improved Polaris graphics chip architecture, with RX 500 cards based on the new Vega design considered unlikely as of this time.
AMD is expected to announce the new Radeon RX 500 cards in the middle of April this year, ahead of the anticipated shipping date for the Radeon RX Vega series. The Radeon RX Vega cards are set to arrive sometime before the end of the second quarter of this year, according to WCCF Tech.
While some tech industry watchers have been wondering if AMD will release an early Vega based graphics processing unit (GPU) ahead of the Radeon RX Vega series, that does not seem to be the case this time. The Radeon RX 500 series will instead be powered by an updated Polaris design. The difference between this Polaris revamp and earlier designs is the use of AMD's new manufacturing process that they call Low Power Plus (LPP), according to Digital Trends.
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The LPP process, when applied to the Polaris design that uses FinFET transistors, results in an enhanced GPU that provides better performance while at the same time using less power and generating less heat. The new FinFET LPP 14 nm chips will form the basis for the upcoming Radeon RX 500 line.
The Radeon RX 500 line will include the RX 580, RX 570 and RX 560. Their performance will range all the way from 2,63 TFLOPS for the RX 560 to 6.17 TFLOPS for the higher-end RX 580. There is no price information available as of this time.
Here are the currently known specs for the Radeon RX 500 line, according to reports.
| Radeon RX 580 | Radeon RX 570 | Radeon RX 560 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process Node: | 14 nm FinFET LPP | 14 nm FinFET LPP | 14 nm FinFET LPP |
| Graphics Chip: | Polaris 20 XTX | Polaris 20 XL | Polaris 11 |
| Stream Processors: | 2,304 | 2,048 | 896 |
| Compute Units: | 36 | 32 | 14 |
| Texture Mapping Units: | 144 | 128 | 56 |
| Render Output Units: | 32 | 32 | 16 |
| Boost Speed: | 1,340 MHz | 1,244 MHz | 1,287 MHz |
| Performance Gain: | 74 MHz | 38 MHz | 87 MHz |
| Compute Performance: | 6.17 TFLOPS | 5.10 TFLOPS | 2.63 TFLOPS |
| Memory Size: | Up to 8 GB GDDR5 | Up to 8 GB GDDR5 | 4 GB GDDR5 |
| Memory interface: | 256-bit | 256-bit | 128-bit |
| Memory Speed: | 8 GHz | 7 GHz | 7 GHz |
| Memory Bandwidth: | 256 GB/s | 224 GB/s | 112 GB/s |
| Power Connector: | 1x 6-pin | 1x 6-pin | 1x 6-pin |
