AMD fans eagerly awaiting the company’s upcoming graphics cards based on its new Vega architecture now have a chance to grab one for free. AMD just launched a Vega-based competition online right here, which requires visitors to click on the “begin initiation” button to launch a questionnaire. There are only three question to answer, and if visitors get one wrong, the questionnaire begins again with the same questions.
Once completed, hopeful winners must enter their details by logging into Facebook or entering an email address. Visitors must also pick a “team,” which obviously refers to the competition between Team Red (AMD) and Team Green (Nvidia). For this competition, only the Red team option is offered. However, as of this publication, the option to pick Team Red was having issues when using an email address to enter the contest while the Facebook login option enabled the registration to continue.
The contest actually began on January 5, 2017, at 9 a.m. ET and will end on February 5, 2017, at 9 a.m. ET. The contest rules state that participants must have a valid Twitter or Facebook account, and follow at least one AMD social media handle. Following additional social handles means that each one counts as an additional entry.
That said, once contestants move past the email or Facebook registration, they are presented with five additional entry options: join the Radeon mailing list, follow @Radeon, @RadeonPro, and @RadeonInstinct on Twitter, and visit Radeon on Facebook. In the end, participants can have up to six contest entries.
There will be two winners of the contest that will be selected at random “on or about” February 6, 2017, at 10 a.m. PT. These two winners will receive an email from the competition’s sponsor, and must respond within three days of receipt. If there’s no response from the winner, an alternate winner will be randomly chosen. That said, make sure Brand & Deliver Marketing Limited (brandanddeliver.co.uk) is not on the spam list.
“Residents of Cuba, North Korea, the Sudan, Syria, Burma/Myanmar, or other countries that are restricted for businesses based in the United States are not eligible to participate in the promotion,” the rules state. “The Sweepstakes is open only to anyone who is at least 18 years of age, or at least the minimum age of majority in their place of residence, whichever is greater) as of the start of the Entry Period.”
The drawback to this contest is that the free Vega-based graphics card could take up to 28 weeks to arrive. There’s also no retail value listed in the rules given that AMD’s Radeon Vega cards are currently not on the market. That said, there’s no telling what winners will get card-wise — will it be a low-end model or a version seated at the top of the Vega totem pole?
There’s a lot of hype surrounding AMD’s new Vega architecture. It follows Polaris, which was used on the company’s Radeon RX 400 Series cards launched in the summer of 2016 targeting mainstream PCs. The prices are rather low, with the RX 480 bringing VR to the masses, the RX 470 focused on PC gaming, and the RX 460 aimed at eSports gamers. The Vega-based cards will compete against Nvidia’s current GeForce GTX 10 Series cards for high-end PC gaming at a higher price point than the Radeon RX 400 Series.
