14 DAY TRIAL // Webcasts can be a lot of fun, but they also tend to be quite informative when they're held by big-name corporations. The one that AMD plans to hold today, less than an hour from this article's writing.
That is why we took the liberty of embedding the soon-to-be-live feed below, and to make a summary of what will likely be covered during the event. We will, of course, report on whatever new things are introduced as well.
Not that there will be many. This is more of an anniversary event meant to help people reminisce about the good old days, and how current times compare to them.
Actual product releases are being held off until September 1, as is the case of that interesting, graphics-Less FM2+ quad-core CPU Athlon X4 860L.
The Tonga graphics processing unit, and the Radeon R9 285 graphics card based on it, will also not be launched today, although some info should be revealed. Availability is going to be withheld until September 2.
Fortunately, some information on the chip already exists. The number of Graphics CoreNext stream processors, for example, or GCN cores for short: 2,048.
Not that all of them will be active. Last we heard, the Tonga chip, at least on the Radeon R9 285, would only have about two thirds of them operational. It makes us wonder if a stronger Radeon R9 290X or something is on the way too.
Also, the GPU has 128 TMUs (texture mapping units) and 32 ROPs (raster operating units) which, again, probably won't all be active.
Other specs include a 256-bit memory interface and 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, though AMD's OEM partners are bound to release 4 GB models as well.
In case you miss the webcast, you should be able to watch a rerun, which will be uploaded (or was uploaded, depending on when you finally tuned in to this article) four hours after the live event.
AMD may or may not mention the 2015-bound Faraway graphics processing units, designed on the 20nm fabrication platform from TSMC and Globalfoundries. Don't hold your breath, though. At this point, not even the rumor of their presumed existence, or even the name itself, has been confirmed.
If you can't access or don't like the Twitch video platform for some reason, you should be able to access the rerun on AMD's YouTube channel. We'll see about spotting the most important points in the public event once the show actually gets on the road.