AMD used (oddly-chosen) marketing language to advertise that its new Radeon RX series GPUs will deliver “console-class performance” – a good thing, we suppose – for gaming notebooks. The specific mention of notebooks is a critical one, as AMD has been more-or-less knocked-out of the notebook game for a few years: Look around for a laptop using an AMD dGPU and, should one even turn up, you'll dig through ten Intel/nVidia options for everyone AMD option. At least, that's how it's felt. With the Polaris process reduction and power efficiency focus, AMD hopes to recapture part of the notebook market while removing traditional gaming notebook restrictions – mostly form factor, i.e. z-height.
The company targets its RX 480 at the 1440p market and has indicated that the RX 470 will be pointed toward satisfying 1080p gaming on 60Hz displays. The RX 460 fills a similar market to nVidia's GTX 950, targeting players of popular, low-graphics eSports titles like DOTA and CSGO. The RX 460 retains a small form factor and low power draw, theoretically making it one of the more discreet devices AMD will be shipping.
We are still awaiting real specifications on the RX 470 and RX 460. Stream processor count, CUs, clock speeds, and memory have not yet been disclosed. There is not yet any pricing information. We have no hard information on the RX 470 and RX 460 right now, other than the fact that they exist. The cards will, somewhat obviously, be cheaper than the $200 SRP of the 4GB RX 480.
Polaris will officially launch to consumers on June 29.
- Steve “Lelldorianx” Burke
