AMD RX 490: With the release of the latest gaming consoles like the Playstation 4 Pro and the Xbox One S and more to come, the need of high-end graphics cards have increased as more and more game developers are looking at delivering video games with the highest graphics specification possible. With 4K gaming being the latest technology being incorporated in the latest premium gaming consoles, 4K supporting graphics cards are becoming a pre-requisite.
One of the most highly anticipated 4K gaming graphics cards is definitely AMD’s Radeon RX 490. If speculations are to be believed, it is possible that gamers would finally be able to enjoy the excellent graphics card before the year ends. The 4K-focused RX 490 has been teased on both AMD and partner Sapphire’s websites, hinting at a release later this year. But those rumours may have been quashed if AMD’s top card is to use the next generation of graphics core. The AMD Radeon RX 490 is a part of the newest Vega 10 family of graphics processor. These processors are based on the same 14nm FinFET technology as the Polaris with 16GB of HBM2 memory.
AMD RX 490 Technical Specifications
A WCCFTech report cites that the AMD RX 490 graphics card is a 4K gaming class GPU with a memory interface larger than 256bit. This means that its memory interface is larger than that of the AMD Radeon RX 480 and the Radeon RX 470 video cards. the graphics processor is made with the 14nm FinFET technology, which is pretty spectacular in comparison to 16nm. In terms of cores, the Radeon RX 490 has 18 percent more processing cores than the competition. This gives the AMD a 10 percent performance boost when compared to rival NVidia’s latest graphics chip GTX 1080 Ti.
In terms of memory, the Radeon RX 490 is still leading the way to greatness. With a 4096-bit wide memory lane, this beast can transfer data at a rate of 512GBps. In terms of cooling, the RX 490 registers a 225W TDP or thermal design power. However, the clock speed for the RX 490 is only at 1200MHz which is slower than the 1080Ti’s 1503MHz.
AMD RX 490 Release Date & Price
The AMD Radeon RX 490 is rumoured to come out sometime before the end of 2017. previous rumours have stated that the tech company will be launching the high-end graphics chipsets in November, but that possibility, as of now is quite remote and we are expecting that AMD will be unveiling the chipset in the early weeks of December.
The fact that the RX 490 will definitely release this year seemed to have essentially been confirmed via a mention on AMD’s own site in conjunction with a key-code promotion they publicised which ends on December 31, 2016.
As far as pricing is concerned, the AMD Radeon RX 490 is expected to come with a price tag which is either equal to or lower than NVidia’s GTX 1080 Ti, which currently sells for $699.99 so the RX-490 will most probably bear a price tag around about the $710 mark.