AMD Polaris based Radeon GPUs have been flying off the shelves since their debut, to say the least. The RX 480's attractive price point for good performance for the reference designed cards have made it a fast seller, and the RX 470 has had near equal amounts of success and the RX 460 proves popular with those who play games that do not demand a lot of power. Beyond the three aforementioned cards, we haven't had much information about a possible RX 490 or more basic cards below a 460. That may have changed, as AMD may have outed new 400 series GPUs on a free game offer promotion site, including an R9 490 model. The promotion site in question is here.
Among the list of 400 series GPUs are also mobile counterparts, including an R9 M485X, and a few low-end offerings, such as an R5 420. Though it does seem rather odd that the Radeon RX nomenclature that has been used on the 400 series so far would be reverted back to the R5, R7 and R9 prefix, the list does suggest that GPUs made after the 460, 470, and 480 may bear these marks.
The site with the list is under an AMD SSL certificate though the domain is listed under a different registrar and administrator than AMD's main site. However, the offer's terms and conditions do list AMD's physical corporate HQ address.
The prospect of an R9 490 would fill the hole that was left by the lack of an apex offering in the 400 series that the 300 and 200 series has enjoyed since the change to the new nomenclature before one enters Fury territory. R5s and R7s in the 400 series would provide cheaper alternatives for those that play graphically simple games or desire to move video output away from onboard GPUs or the CPU while taking advantage of Polaris's gains in power efficiency. At the moment, all we can say is that anything on a possible R9 490 or any other unconfirmed 400 series GPU is merely speculation.
What we do know is that AMD is planning the release of Vega GPUs, set to power the new flagship level graphics cards, in early 2017, based on information from AMD's Capscaicin event in March of this year. If patterns from the R9 390 and Fury series repeat this time around, the release of a hypothetical R9 490 would serve as the entry level enthusiast offering of Polaris powered Radeon cards before going into a flagship device such as a hypothetical new Fury.
TechRaptor has reached out to AMD for comment. We will update as soon as we know anything new or receive clarification.
