AMD Radeon RX 480 VR-Ready $199 Graphics card

AMD has announced a new Radeon RX 480 graphics card priced at $199 and capable of "delivering VR capability common in $500 GPUs." The Radeon RX 480 is scheduled to launch on June 29, with a model that is certified to power the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

The card is part of AMD's strategy to "dramatically accelerate VR adoption" and grow the market. It will be the first card to use a Polaris architecture-based processor. According to AMD, the company noted from the results of a survey that high costs represented the highest barrier to VR adoption.

The Radeon RX 480 specifications are:

TFLOPS	>5
CUs	36
Memory Bandwidth	256 GB/s
Data Rate (Effective)	8 Gbps
Memory Size	4/8 GB GDDR5
Memory Bit-rate	256-bit
Power	150 W
VR Premium	Yes
AMD FreeSync	Yes
Display Port	1.4/1.4 HDR

The announcement notes that AMD intends for Polaris architecture-based cards to bring VR-ready desktops and notebooks to market over the next ten years.

Three months ago AMD revealed the "most powerful graphics card in the world" the $1500 Radeon Pro Duo, aimed at VR developers. While the price point is a far cry from the $199 Radeon RX 480, the card signifies AMD's heavy investment in virtual reality.

More recently, competitor Nvidia released the GeForce GTX 1070, a $379 GPU which the company claims is more powerful than the $1,000 GeForce GTX Titan X.