AMD Radeon RX 490 release date, news, specs rumors: Next Polaris GPU to be released later this year?

Miguel Salonga Thursday, October 13, 2016

Promotional image for the AMD Polaris 10 GPUs released last June. | Twitter/AMD

AMD has been successful in unveiling the new Radeon video cards based on Polaris architecture. Not only do these graphics processing units (GPUs) offer high-quality visual experience in playing today's advanced video games, but they are also being sold in the market for a very reasonable price. With only a few months left this 2016, it is rumored that AMD will release at least one Polaris-based Radeon graphics chip before the year ends.

As reported by WCCF Tech, it is possible that a new Polaris video card will be unveiled by AMD within the next few weeks or months. It has already been rumored a few months ago that AMD is planning to release one more GPU this year, which is supported by a mysterious listing of the AMD Radeon RX 490 on the Sapphire website and even AMD's official website itself. The listing was taken down shortly on both websites.

The latest specs rumors indicate that the Radeon RX 490 might be more powerful than its predecessors. Videocardz reported that the next Polaris graphics card will be a dual GPU, having 1,200MHz base clock, 9830 Giga Flops of computing power and 350 (1,400) MHz memory clock.

Meanwhile, according to Yibada, the upcoming Radeon RX 490 is slated to match the impressive specs of the GeForce GTX 1080, a GPU from AMD's rival company, NVIDIA. The GTX 1080 is based on Pascal architecture, and although the Polaris GPUs are notable for their great performance, NVIDIA's latest graphics cards are very competitive in the high-end market.

Other features of the Radeon RX 490 are still unknown, but the people can expect that the GPU will boast impressive lineup of specs once it is released. The tight competition is expected to play a role for AMD to develop a powerful GPU.

There are rumors that the AMD Radeon RX 490 might actually be the new Vega GPU, although this is unlikely as the upcoming graphics cards from AMD based on the latest Vega architecture are still expected to arrive in 2017.