AMD Radeon RX 490 release date, news, specs rumors: Radeon RX 490 may come out before the year ends

Will AMD release the Radeon RX 490 before the year ends? Well, there have been conflicting reports circulating the internet right now. Some sources say the Radeon RX 490 will not come out this year, while others say AMD is definitely going to make the announcement this December. In fact, Wccftech's Usman Pirzada has reported that AMD will unveil and launch the graphics card on the same day.

He also said the Radeon RX 490 has been listed on AMD's official website and some add-in board (AIB) websites for a while now. But upon checking, the graphics card was not featured on the AMD website or anywhere else. Links to the sites he was talking about would have been helpful. Perhaps he was talking about the accidental listing made earlier this year. It was taken down quickly, though.

Despite what several reports have been saying, AMD has never confirmed that the graphics card was coming out in December. The company never made any official announcements, so nothing is set in stone.

However, alleged specs leaks have been out for some months. The leak shows that the Radeon RX 490 is going to be based on AMD's next-generation Vega architecture, and not Polaris-based. The question is: is the Vega GPU ready?

According to Wccftech, it is also possible the graphics card may feature a Polaris 10-based dual graphics processing unit (GPU) instead of being Vega based.

"We have done a pretty thorough analysis of all the hints previously and I am of the opinion that the evidence in favor of it being a dual GPU Polaris based affair is much greater than Vega coming early. That said, it is entirely possible that Vega has been fast-forwarded and is now ready to ship under the RX 490 brand name," Pirzada said in his report.

Right now, AMD has yet to announce the official release date and specs of the Radeon RX 490. Until they do so, readers are advised to take everything with a grain of salt.