AMD has just announced that its Polaris-type GPUs will have different lineups for specialized devices, with the Polaris 10 GPUs focusing as main desktop graphics cards, and will also branch out as the graphics carrier for high-end notebooks.
According to Yibada, the Polaris architecture of AMD's newest set of GPUs branches out to serve different niches, with the Polaris 10 being the core of the new lineup. Reportedly, the new Polaris 10-run AMD GPUs will be the mainstream iteration and will be used on both conventional desktops and high-end notebook spectrum. However, even if the Polaris 10 cards are targeted at the casual user, AMD has apparently used an almost similar setup to higher-level AMD cards.
At the recently concluded Computex 2016 convention, while the highlight of the event is the step-up Polaris 11 architecture in the Radeon RX 480, it is said that the yet-unannounced Radeon RX 470 with Polaris 10 also shares similar setup, such as the same 14nm FinFET process. With AMD's dual-graphics feature almost present in recent releases, it is unclear if the two Radeon RXs can be meshed well, although speculations suggest that two new Radeon RX setups in a single machine may even outmatch the higher-level GTX 1080. The new GTX is part of the recently-unveiled card lineup from competitor Nvidia.
The niche for the two Polaris lineups has been laid out by AMD earlier this year. In a report by WCCFTech, it is revealed that while Polaris 10 will also target notebooks, the lineup targeting the specialized niche is the Polaris 11. The so-called "baby Polaris" meshes well with portable laptops in terms of performance and stability. Meanwhile, although Polaris 10 is also aimed at the notebook market, AMD will focus the architecture towards the higher end of notebook lineups, particularly those aimed as performance-based and gaming-centric laptops.
