AMD Radeon Polaris Goes Embedded For Casino Gaming, Digital Signage

AMD targeted the mainstream market when it debuted the RX 400 series graphics cards. The RX 480 was the industry’s first $200 VR-ready GPU, and the RX 470 and 460 offered more performance-per-dollar than any of the company’s previous graphics cards. The key to Radeon’s next-gen performance is the Polaris 10 architecture, and AMD is now branching into the embedded market with the new GPU in an effort to bring high-performance imaging to the medical field, digital signage, and commercial casino gaming.

AMD’s new embedded Polaris offerings feature the same Polaris 10 GPU we see in the desktop variants, and it comes in two different models. The E9260 can come as an MXM module or a PCIe card and features 14 compute units (CUs) for a total of 896 shaders, with 4GB of GDDR5 memory running on a 128-bit bus.

The E9260 can reach up to 2.5 TFLOPs with its 50W TDP. The E9550 is beefier, with 36 CUs (for a total of 2,304 shader cores), 8GB of GDDR5, and a 256-bit memory bus. However, the E9550 comes in only an MXM form factor, but it can hit 5.8 TFLOPs of single-precision calculations with a 95W TDP.

We’ve already discussed the role that VR has to play in the gambling market, and AMD appears to have its finger on that pulse with the new E9550 and E9260 embedded graphics, which are capable of delivering 4K and VR experiences in an appealing form factor.

Although these new cards won’t be on the consumer market, the debut of the E9550 and E9260 confirm that AMD is striving to become an even more relevant factor in the commercial markets.

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ProductAMD Radeon E9550AMD Radeon E9260
Form FactorMXM Type B-MXM Type A-PCIe 3.0 x16
Compute Units3614
Memory8 GB GDDR54 GB GDDR5
Memory Width256-bit128-bit
TDP95W50W
OutputsDisplayPort x6-Mini-DisplayPort x4 (PCIe)-DisplayPort x5 (MXM)
Planned Longevity3 Years5 Years
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
  • lun471k
    Slot Machine displays are going to get serious!
    Reply
  • captaincharisma
    so you lost $500,000 but the graphics are so damn good on this slot machine
    Reply
  • voodoochicken
    You laugh, but slots have been licensing every kind of tv and movie property just to slap pictures on the side of the machine, some licensed clips of audio and/or video to play during a game, with more advanced graphics, I'm sure they'll eventually make custom VR sequences
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    Isn't MXM Type B the one you usually see inside notebooks? As in, wouldn't that card be compatible for a regular laptop?

    I'd love for AMD and nVidia to sell MXM cards for notebooks :(

    EDIT: Just read a bit about it. Type B is the 200W ceiling one. It seems like Type A is preferred for notebooks with a 55W ceiling... Although I'm pretty sure the 10xx cards from nVidia must be using MXM-B in notebooks.

    Cheers!
    Reply
  • Brian_R170
    Aren't TDP and performance-per-Watt are even more important in embedded applications? Seems like AMD could be at a disadvantage in this market even when there's a tossup in the desktop market. I guess price may be even more important here too, so selling them cheaper could again be the key to winning, it just doesn't help their bottom-line as much.
    Reply
  • bloc97
    Here goes the fanboys again... People just can't appreciate good things in life.
    Reply
  • bloodroses
    Extra income for AMD. With the extra income comes better development; which results in more competitive products. Close competitiveness equals lower prices. Overall, this is a win for everyone. :)
    Reply
  • johnnycanadian
    This is a brilliant move by AMD: Unity makes a killing licensing their 3D engine to gaming machine companies (and they're actually extremely cost-effective when compared to scratch-building one's own display system). Between consoles and casino gaming, I'm hopeful it'll keep AMD afloat until their CPU offerings are competitive.
    Reply
  • nathan_b12
    Novomatic make extensive use of nvidia GPU's in the slot machines at the casino I work in. With several million slots deployed worldwide it makes sense for AMD to muscle into such markets if it can and digital signage displays will number in the hundreds of millions before too long. Good move if they can be competitive and profitable.
    Reply
  • Jorge Nascimento
    Biggest casinos businesses on Asia, Macau is smaller and makes more money from casinos then 2X Las Vegas.
    AMD as a very solid position on Asian markets specially china. So yeah, more money, happier shareholders, little bit more $$ for research and development.
    Reply