Gigabyte Aorus Radeon RX 570 4GB

When Vega? WHEN VEGA?!

- Zak Storey

IT’S BEEN ALMOST14 months since Nvidia launched its GTX 1080 GPU, and in that time AMD has released diddly-squat to challenge it. Leaving the high-end marketplace to be monopolized by the gargantuan green giant, it seems that just as AMD has regained some ground in the processor market, thanks to its brilliant Ryzen processors, its GPU strategy has faceplanted into the ground in a liquor-fuelled stupor. These cards are, frankly, not that interesting. Not even as far as a rebadge is concerned.

Harsh? Absolutely not. Every new generational jump in GPU prowess has lead to one, maybe two, redesigned cards at the top end, with the older flagships then generally relegated down a step each time, usually with a slightly higher clock speed, and potentially some architectural tweaks to bring them in line with the new titans of graphical dexterity heading up the range. An R9 290 becomes an R9 380, a 280 becomes a 370, and so on.