AMD Explains Their Rationale Behind the Polaris Range

AMD’s Polaris range was always intended to bring affordable hardware to the masses and encourage prospective PC gamers to join the platform. This is a noble idea because the vast excitement and media coverage surrounding flagship products which cost over £600 can give consumers a skewed perception of how expensive PC gaming is. Saying that, the lower tier offerings haven’t been ideal and it’s generally recommended to spend around £230-£300 until now. AMD’s RX 480 apparently offers a premium VR experience and rumours suggest it performs better than an R9 390. This particular GPU features 5 TFLOPS of compute performance and starts from a ridiculously cheap $199. Today, AMD released some slides to the press which helps us to understand what Polaris is all about. As you can see, 95% of those who completed the Steam hardware survey use a 1080P monitor or below.

Additionally, AMD’s own research suggests that 84% of consumers purchase graphics cards within the $100-$300 bracket. As a result, AMD is targeting the mainstream user and wants to provide excellent performance. This is actually possible because most people are using a monitor which doesn’t require a very expensive graphics solution.

The RX 480 could be hugely successful for AMD and help them to forge a better position in the discrete GPU market. This release is good news for consumers and I’m looking forward to seeing how the RX 480 performs in a number of demanding titles.