AMD Unveils “Entire Polaris Line-Up” During E3 2016

AMD’s CEO, Lisa Su made an appearance during the PC Gaming show to show off some new graphics hardware. Unlike last year’s event which featured the Fury X and R9 390 range, this reveal was more subdued and rather brief. I was a little surprised by the lack of detail because AMD is the main sponsor of this event. Nevertheless, it’s great to see Lisa Su discuss AMD’s future plans and display working samples. Once again, Lisa Su brought along a mysterious box which contained three graphics cards. Firstly, the RX 480 was displayed and a brief comment followed regarding its fantastic price for mainstream VR scenarios.

Of course, this isn’t new information and we’re more interested in the other two products being officially confirmed. Once this part of the briefing was over, Lisa Su held up the RX 470 and RX 460. Apparently, the RX 470 is designed for 1080P gaming while the RX 460 targets eSport fans who play games without huge graphical demands. On another note, Lisa Su added that the RX 460 features a TDP of 75 watts. Perhaps the most revealing moment occurred when Lisa Su said this is the “entire Polaris line-up”. As a result, it looks likely that the Polaris range will be out relatively soon and targets mass sales from the lower-end. Hopefully, this means Vega isn’t too far way either. It’s important to remember that Polaris was never designed to compete with NVIDIA’s GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 which can be misread by some people.

Raja Koduri, AMD’s senior vice president and chief architect at the Radeon Technologies Group said:

“Gamers and consumers today are being left behind,” 

“Today only the top 16 percent of PC gamers are purchasing GPUs that deliver premium VR and Gaming experiences. Hundreds of millions of gamers have been relegated to using outdated technology. Notebook gamers are often forced to compromise. And tens of millions more can only read about incredible PC VR experiences that they can’t enjoy for themselves. That all changes with the Radeon™ RX Series, placing compelling and advanced high-end gaming and VR technologies within reach of everyone.”

What do you think of AMD’s full Polaris line-up?