AMD Confirms Vega GPU Launch Coming In Q2 With 8K Video Editing Prowess

On the CPU side, AMD is back in the game with its Ryzen architecture. But when it comes to graphics, AMD is still serving the entry-level and mid-range markets with Polaris. Even its recent refresh with the Radeon RX 500 series does not offer anything competitive with NVIDIA's Pascal parts, such as its GeForce GTX 1080, 1080 Ti, or Titan Xp. That is where Vega will come into play, and apparently we will see graphics cards based on Vega sometime this quarter.

A Facebook user flat out asked AMD when Vega will be ready, to which AMD replied, "When it is ready... and it will be this quarter." While that is not quite an exact release date, it is a general time frame that confirms Vega will be shipping within the next two months (since we're already wrapping up the first month of the second quarter of 2017). The takeaway for consumers is that this is one of those time where it is worth waiting to see what is right around the corner, assuming you can skate by on whatever GPU you're currently using.


Another reason to wait is because Vega could be a massive upgrade over Polaris. It is difficult to separate hype from reality when it come to unreleased products, but AMD has been giving some promising demonstrations of Vega at the annual NAB show in Las Vegas. AMD has on display a high-end Vega graphics card processing 8K video content in Adobe's Premiere Pro CC 2017 video editing software without breaking a sweat.

In yet another demonstration at NAB, AMD has the same card working on 4K post-processing with Radeon ProRender, a professional grade rendering engine for high-end graphics.

The NAB show is geared towards the television and film industry, not gaming. However, the demonstrations underscore the power of AMD's Vega architecture. Being able to process 8K video content is no small deal, and even though gaming is still in the early stages of adopting 4K game play, 8K is the next frontier.

Vega will also mark the introduction of second generation high bandwidth memory (HBM2) on graphics cards. Combined with a new rendering engine and twice the peak throughput per clock compared to Polaris, Vega is on a path to deliver a big bump in GPU performance and image quality.