At E3's second-annual PC Gaming Show, AMD CEO Lisa Su unveiled two graphics cards based on the company's new Polaris architecture: the RX 460 and the RX 470.
These new 14nm process cards looked itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie in Su's hands, and they will be matched with lower-end specs than the $199 RX 480 card (likely around £160), which received a separate reveal two weeks ago. Su described the RX 470 as an ideal card for "1080p gaming" and is likely to be based on a slimmed down version of the chip in the RX 480, while the RX 460 promises to offer serious power for the low energy requirement of 75 watts and is designed for e-sports games like League of Legends and other MOBAs.
Specs, prices, and release dates for these two Polaris cards were not formally announced at the event, but given the RX 480 is going to retail for $199, they're going to be light on the wallet. Su also brought on a representative to walk around the stage wearing a backpack complete with an Alienware PC installed inside—backpack PCs are something of a trend right now—which could actually be light and comfortable if AMD pulls off a small form factor with the "disruptive" $199 RX 480 card packed inside.
AMD didn't reveal any new details on the Polaris architecture, but we do at least already know that it's 14nm and that the reduction in die size is enabling the company to dramatically improve the efficiency of the underlying GCN architecture. The RX 480 with its 36 compute units and 256GB/s of bandwidth is likely to perform somewhere between the existing R9 380 and R9 380X, but at a mere 150W.
Aiming for the mainstream market is a smart move from AMD for growing market share. While the company's Fury range of graphics cards were good products, they still can't compete with Nvidia at the high end, particularly now that Nvidia has released the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080, the latter of which is the fastest graphics card you can buy right now.