We've heard some on and off rumors over the past couple of months that suggested AMD's larger, more powerful GPU codenamed 'Vega' could launch in late 2016. However the latest set of slides, which appear to have been leaked from an AMD investor presentation, all but confirm that Vega will not be seen until 2017.

The key line in AMD's presentation says that Vega will launch "for the enthusiast market in 1H 2017", which fits with the initial roadmap AMD showed off during their Polaris launch event. The downside? We won't be seeing any high-end Radeon graphics cards until next year at the earliest.

AMD's current GPU line-up includes Polaris 10 and Polaris 11, mid-range and entry-level products designed for graphics cards in high volume markets. The most expensive Polaris part on the market today is the Radeon RX 480 8 GB at $240, which has proven to be a very popular card among system builders. The RX 480 is in so much demand that AMD has had trouble keeping it in stock since its launch in late June.

However AMD does not have any products to take on Nvidia's high-end GeForce 10 series, which includes the powerful GTX 1070 and GTX 1080. These high margin products have contributed to record profits for Nvidia, helped by effectively no competition from the AMD side. These GeForce cards will sit unopposed at the high end until 2017 at the earliest.