AMD has finally unveiled its new Radeon R9 and R7 series of GPUs that will soon be battling Nvidia’s GeForce GTX Titan for PC gaming rig owner’s hearts, minds and, more importantly, wallets.

The R9 range consists of the R9 290X, R9 290, R9 280X, as well as the R9 270X, whilst the R7 series is composed of the R7 260X and R7 250 graphics cards. Along with these new GPUs, AMD also launches Mantle and AMD TrueAudio technology.

In indivisible Mantle linking consoles to gaming PCs

AMD is aiming to capitalise on being the PC GPU maker who also happens to produce the GPUs utilised by the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Wii U. In the past gaming developers would optimise the graphics of their games for one platform like the Xbox 360 for instance and would then have to re-optimise it for another platform such as the PlayStation 3.

Thanks to its new programming interface called Mantle, the company is providing programmers with the ability to optimise the graphics of their titles just once in order to simplify the game development process. Game developers will then leverage the commonalities that exists between the Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture present in the GPUs of high-powered PCs and next generation consoles, without having to re-optimise their title for each platform separately.

AMD TrueAudio technology

AMD stated that its TrueAudio technology will enhance the audio experience for PC gamers by providing game developers with a programmable audio pipeline directly on the GPU. This will enable programmers to bring more realistic environmental sound dynamics to their titles.

The GPU and CPU maker added that TrueAudio technology will boost audio realism by simulating the human brain’s perception of real-world sound. In addition, this new graphics technology will work in conjunction with a PC user’s existing audio hardware to recreate a more lifelike audio experience within games.

No local release info is available yet, with AMD just stating that its new Radeon R9 and R7 series graphics cards will be “available for purchase in the near future.”

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