AMD Vega is called … Radeon RX Vega

For the second year in a row, making it a tradition according to graphics manager Raja Koduri, AMD held the spicy graphics event Capsaicin in conjunction with the Game Developer Conference. This time too, the future was at the center, more specifically the graphic architecture Vega.

The biggest news came last and that was the name. There has long been speculation that the first graphics card with Vega will be called Radeon RX 490 or RX 580. However, the name has had such a big impact among AMD’s supporters that they choose to name it after the architecture – Radeon RX Vega.

While the focus with the architecture Polaris and Radeon RX 460, RX 470 and RX 480 was the market’s lower price segment, AMD aims for the enthusiast class with the Radeon RX Vega. The new architecture is also intended to “democratize” 4K resolution and take Vega to “millions of users” – via the cloud.

In connection with the event, AMD announces a collaboration with Liquidsky, which is currently beta testing a service to stream more complex games to devices with leaner hardware. The service will build around Vega, which remotely renders the game and sends a video stream to the end user.

One of the main features of Vega is High-Bandwidth Cache Controller (HBCC), a new type of memory controller. This should make better use of all available graphics memory and bandwidth than previous solutions. This is highlighted as a great advantage as the graphics memory is one of the most expensive components on a graphics card.

To demonstrate the benefits, AMD shows a demonstration in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where Vega gets an average of 50 percent higher frame rate (fps) with HBCC than without, while the minimum value takes a shot up by as much as 100 percent. At the same time, AMD says that the game was originally developed with 4 GB of graphics memory in mind, but that with the help of HBCC it runs well even when Vega is artificially limited to 2 GB.

In terms of specifications, AMD keeps the lid on. What is known from the past is that the graphics circuit is flanked by two HBM2 memory capsules and that early copies shown are equipped with 8 GB of graphics memory. Assuming that the HBM2 memory is clocked at 1,000 MHz (2,000 MHz efficient), this gives a bandwidth of 512 GB / s, the same as the Radeon R9 Fury X, which, however, is not equipped with HBCC.

The launch of the architecture Vega and AMD Radeon RX Vega is expected to take place before the summer months and previous information has spoken about the month of May.