AMD Vega 10 GPU release date, news, specs rumors: New Vega architecture still launching in 2016?

The AMD Radeon RX 470, 460, based on the Polaris architecture. According to reports, the follow-up to the lineup, based on the next-in-line Vega architecture, will be unveiled at the end of the year.AMD

AMD is said to come out with a new architecture for its GPU lineups. Previously reported to be launching next year, speculations suggest that the upcoming Vega 10-based graphics card may possibly be released within 2016 after all.

According to WCCFTech, AMD is scheduling a two-part release for its new Vega architecture. The base version, Vega 10, will reportedly debut later this year. Meanwhile, the upper-tier Vega 11 cards coming out next year. Both versions are based on the new GCN graphics architecture. The new set of cards is said to be AMD's answer to the top-tier GPU classes of its rival, Nvidia, particularly the upper crust of the new GTX 10 series. In fact, supposed leaked specs for the follow-up to the Fury X, based on the Vega 10 architecture, has next-gen V9 cores and compute performance of upwards of 12 teraflops. Should this be consistent with the consumer version of the Vega 10-based card, the new GPU will be on top of Nvidia's premium GTX Titan X in terms of performance and speed.

Aside from the new GPU cards, it is also said that AMD will come out with a new board dubbed as "Magnum."

However, the late 2016 release of the new Vega-based cards is said to be only an introductory launch for the lineup. According to TechFrag, it is likely that the Vega 10-based card that will launch later this year is an upper-tier, Pro version — with an appropriate price tag. Meanwhile, the general consumer versions of Vega 10-based GPUs will possibly start rolling out early next year.

While AMD has yet to come out with detailed schedule plans for the Vega release, launching a higher model for the new lineup is highly possible. This is what AMD has done with past GPU series, more recently with the RX 4XX lineup. The company first rolled out the RX 480 card and followed it up with the step-down versions RX 470 and RX 460.