Radeon Technologies Group Logo.
At the recently held event in Sonoma, California, newly formed AMD spin-off gathered selected press representatives to brief them about the developments the new company is working on. With the Radeon Technologies Group spin-off, the focus should work on pushing away from politics (which lead to a lot ‘spilled digital ink’, like the R9 Nano ‘fair reviews’ affair) into technology and products. Recent hiring of Scott Wasson, founder and editor-and-chief of the Tech Report should help with the technology development and quality control.
As we were not invited for the event, we will only bring you a verbatim copy of what came from Mrs. Caitlin, AMD’s Account Executive at Edelman PR Agency. Bring the conclusions yourself.
The evolution of AMD FreeSync
AMD is enabling FreeSync support over HDMI in early 2016, making smooth gaming experiences more accessible to everyone. FreeSync through HDMI will be supported on all AMD APUs and GPUs that already support FreeSync via DisplayPort, and AMD is working with ecosystem partners including LG, Samsung and Acer to deliver FreeSync over HDMI-compatible displays. Potential use cases include:
· More affordable mainstream monitors, 70% of which lack a DisplayPort connector
· External monitors for notebooks with an HDMI port connected to FreeSync-ready Radeon graphics
AMD is also introducing the first notebook with a validated AMD FreeSync panel, the Lenovo Y700, which is exclusively available from Best Buy USA starting at $899. The Lenovo Y700 features the AMD FX-8800P “Carrizo” APU and Radeon R9 M380 Graphics with a direct drive LCD display and a 40-60Hz dynamic refresh range.
AMD and its partners have now announced or shipped 40 displays across the DisplayPort and HDMI interfaces, making AMD FreeSync the world’s foremost dynamic refresh technology by 2:1.
High Dynamic Range (HDR) compatibility
As consumers start to demand higher-quality monitors, HDR technology is emerging to set an excitingly high bar for overall display quality. HDR panels are characterized by:
· Brightness between 600-1200 cd/m2 of luminance, with an industry goal to reach 2000
· Contrast ratios that closely mirror human visual sensitivity to contrast (SMPTE 2084)
· And the Rec.2020 color gamut that can produce over 1 billion colors at 10 bits per color
HDR displays can be designed with the supreme black depth of OLED, or the vivid brightness of local dimming LCD. Both are suitable for gaming. A selection of TVs are already available, and consumer monitors are expected to reach the market in the second half of 2016. Such displays will offer unrivaled color accuracy, saturation, brightness, and black depth—in short, they will come very close to simulating the real world.
Existing Radeon R9 300 Series GPUs will be compatible with HDR displays in 2016 for gaming, while our 2016 GPUs will extend support to both gaming and movies. We’re already working with top game developers to enable HDR output from 2016 games, and will have more to share on that work next year.
