Yesterday we were blown away by the reveal of the gorgeous Radeon RX Vega Frontier Edition from AMD. The cards come in two variants, a blue with gold model that uses a blower type cooler. Then the even sexier gold with blue highlights that uses an AIO cooler. However, as much as we wanted to see gaming graphics cards, that’s not what the Frontier Edition was about. The cards are designed for creators, such as game developers and CAD applications. They’re also for demanding scientific workloads, as they’re a one-size-fits-all workstation card.
Can you game on this card? Absolutely, according to AMD. However, this is a professional card and you can expect it to be priced as such. That means expensive and not ideal for consumer gaming.
So when can we get gaming cards?
Raja Koduri has said that while the card is for creators, consumers can expect gaming cards to follow a little while afterwards on the Radeon blog.
The Radeon Vega Frontier Edition graphics card is going to empower the pioneers creating the next generation of gaming experiences, but it does beg one question: Can you game on a Radeon Vega Frontier Edition? The answer is yes, absolutely. But because this graphics card is optimized for professional use cases (and priced accordingly), if gaming is your primary reason for buying a GPU, I’d suggest waiting just a little while longer for the lower-priced, gaming-optimized Radeon RX Vega graphics card. You’ll be glad you did.
On behalf of everyone at AMD and Radeon Technologies Group, thank you to the pioneers of today and the visionaries of tomorrow. To learn more about the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition graphics card, visit radeon.com/frontier and we’ll be providing further details by mid-June. I’ll also be hosting an AMA on Reddit this Thursday at 2 pm PST – please join me at reddit.com/r/AMD.
Prices and Specifications?
We honestly haven’t got a clue how much the Frontier Edition costs yet. However, expect a more accessible and affordable design for the consumer cards. This to me would suggest different memory configurations, such as the difference between the high-end Nvidia Titan cards and their consumer GTX cards. Also, expect a lower price point to reflect that.
Why the delay?
I’m not even sure this is a delay. It’s more that AMD is launching the creative solution first. Then you can expect it to filter down to consumer levels. Of course, it’s also likely even more affordable cards will follow after that. Is it possible HBM2 stock is the problem? Perhaps, but only time will tell.
