AMD confirmed on Thursday that it plans to hold a live press conference and webcast during Computex 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan. Previous rumors had the company holding a special launch event the weekend prior to the show in Macau, the “Las Vegas” of China, and that could still happen with certain members of the press under an embargo. But the company won’t publicly reveal its new products until 10 p.m. EST on June 1.
According to AMD President and CEO Lisa Su is slated to kick things off during the event along with Jim Anderson, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Business Group, and Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group. The presentations will be streamed live to AMD’s Computex page and its Investor Relations home page.
As previously reported, AMD is expected to showcase its Radeon R9 400 series of cards based on its Polaris 10 and Polaris 11 graphics processors. The latter chip will be targeted at the notebook market while the former will set its sights on the high-end gaming notebook and mainstream desktop markets. Polaris 10 is expected to be AMD’s flagship graphics chip until the company debuts Vega sometime in 2017.
AMD’s Polaris architecture is based on 14 nanometer FinFET process technology. This platform supports AMD’s fourth-generation Graphics Core Next platform, 4K H.265 encode and decode, DisplayPort 1.3, HDMI 2.0a, and DDR4 memory. The Polaris 10 chip was actually recently seen cranking out 60 frames per second at a 1,440p resolution in Hitman, based on Windows 10’s DirectX 12 graphics API.
However, what’s a cause for concern is AMD’s use of the “Polaris updates” description in its announcement, leading us to wonder if the company plans to launch products during the event, or simply provide an update on the progression of Polaris-based products. Given that Nvidia is gearing up to release its well-reviewed GeForce GTX 1080 card by the end of the month, AMD needs to provide a competing solution rather quick.
In addition to revealing its Polaris “updates,” AMD said that the event will see the launch of its seventh-generation AMD A-Series processors. The company teased these new “Bristol Ridge” chips, which are engineered for Windows 10 and support DirectX 12 gaming on the go, last month. AMD said they will be provided in dual-core and quad-core solutions that use the “Excavator” core architecture.
During a recent briefing, AMD told the press that 15-watt designs of the new A-Series APUs will go head to head with Intel’s 15-watt Core mobile chips in many laptops made by OEMs, or original equipment manufacturers. The company also said that these new seventh-generation chips will finally allow AMD to power high-end laptops, which are typically driven by Intel processors.
One product that will sport a new A-Series “FX” chip will be HP’s refreshed Envy x360 convertible laptop. This notebook/tablet hybrid will sport a 15.6-inch IPS screen with Full HD and UHD options. They’ll also come in two flavors: dual-core or four-core APU solutions. The current models sold on the market use sixth-generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors.
That all said, June 1 is right around the corner. If you won’t be able to catch the live-stream at the scheduled time (it’s late for those of us on the East Coast), the company will replay the broadcast a few hours after the show ends, and store the video on both sites for the next year so fans don’t miss all the AMD goodness flowing from Computex 2016.
