During AMD's GDC 2016 keynote, the company showed off a next-generation GPU from their upcoming Polaris line. Known as the Polaris 10, this new GPU is built using a 14nm FinFET manufacturing process, and fully supports emerging technologies like DirectX 12 and virtual reality.

The showcase at GDC involved Hitman running at 1440p, 60 FPS, although quality settings weren't mentioned. For comparison, a top-end Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti is able to run Hitman at just below 60 FPS at 1440p on maximum quality settings, so it seems Polaris 10 is quite powerful.

AMD claims their Polaris architecture has "industry-leading performance-per-watt", and they've backed that up with some statistics. An unspecified Polaris GPU running Star Wars Battlefront on medium settings at 1080p 60 FPS consumed just 86W, compared to Nvidia's Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 950 which used 140W at the same settings.

AMD also revealed their roadmap for future GPU architectures, including "Vega" in early 2017 with HBM2 (expected to be an extension to Polaris), and "Navi" in 2018 with next-generation memory. As the main focus for AMD at present is Polaris, the company isn't detailing either of these architectures just yet.

Also today: AMD announces Radeon Pro Duo graphics card alongside more VR initiatives