AMD is now getting more serious about Nvidia competition.The Sunnyvale-based company has officially entered the fierce GPU battle when it announced its latest salvo, a new set of graphics cards based on its Polaris architecture. AMD made the huge announcement this week.

The moves mark AMD's latest step in the ongoing GPU battle in the PC mainstream markets with the AMD Radeon RX 500 series cards as the company's ultimate weapon of choice in this upcoming battle. But the war with Nvidia or Intel does not start and end on the front page, this is just the beginning. The battle for supremacy is going to be huge when the new AMD Radeon RX 500 series cards started to roll out in the market.

The new set of Polaris-based GPUs, which comprises of AMD Radeon RX 580, AMD Radeon RX 570, AMD Radeon RX 560 and the entry-level AMD Radeon RX 550, will bring significant improvements and speed. AMD's latest set of Polaris-based graphics cards come built on a refined, 3rd generation 14nm FinFet architecture, Wccftech reported.

At the top of the new set of Polaris-based GPUs is the AMD Radeon RX 580, featuring 32 compute units and a whopping 8GB of GDDR5 video memory. Developed as a direct competitor to the crowd's favorite Nvidia GTX lines, this new AMD Radeon RX 580 promises deliver well above 60 frames per second (fps) gaming on 1,440p and Ultra settings.

When launched, the AMD Radeon RX 580 will leads a new generation of Polaris-based graphics cards. This new set of GPUs pushes stronger performance with more aggressive tuning for higher clocks along with enhanced efficiency.It can do almost everything, including seamless virtual reality experience.

As for the pricing and availability, this new set of Polaris-based GPUs is set to hit the market at sub-$300 US pricing. This kind of pricing will allow the Sunnyvale-based company to target the PC mainstream market once again, which was also their main aim with the previous Radeon RX 400 series.

Prices for the AMD Radeon RX 580 4 GB variant will start at $199 (US market), while the RX 580 8 GB variant will cost $229 (US market). However, the AMD Radeon RX 580 custom models will get a much higher price since they offer premium cooling designs and PCB custom designs, according to Wccftech.

Finally, the chipmaker is also making a huge claim that the new GPU will be 12 percent faster than any older $200-$300 GPU. The AMD Radeon RX 580 starts to roll out on April 18.

In another AMD-related story, the Sunnyvale-based company has also released an upgraded version of its AMD Radeon Crimson ReLive driver to support the newly released AMD Radeon RX 580 graphics cards, the PC Gamer reported.

However, the latest Crimson ReLive 17.4.3 release doesn't seem to offer a lot more on the table. The only thing AMD has mentioned in their release notes is the support for the Windows 10 Creators Update, the website added.

The previous Crimson ReLive 17.4.2 driver addressed several issues, such as better multi-GPU performance in the DICE's "Battlefield 1." It also brought some improvement and support for SteamVR asynchronous reprojection. The previous 17.4.2 driver was also the first driver to support Windows 10 Creators Update features like Beam built-in streaming, high dynamic range (HDR), and Game Mode.

For more about the current known issues with the AMD Crimson ReLive 17.4.3 software, check out PC Gamer website. The latest version of AMD Crimson ReLive driver is now for download at AMD website.

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Tags AMD, NVIDIA, Computing