More news from the E3 frontier - AMD have announced a new mini PC that they claim is capable of running any 4K game at 60FPS; a big claim coming from the company, however the PC does show off some pretty beastly specs that could just pull it off.
Project Quantum is a tiny (rather good-looking) box powered by AMD's latest dual Fiji XT processors, used in the R9 Fury X GPUs, along with 8GB of High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM). The entire system is watercooled to keep it running cool and very quiet. Large copper blocks sit on the CPU and GPUs in the bottom chamber which are supplied with coolant from a massive radiator in the top chamber. An equally massive fan, roughly the same size as the mini-ITX board below it, quietly exhausts the unwanted heat. For truly uncompromised performance AMD had to use Intel Corp.’s i7 Devil's Canyon CPU in the model they showcased at E3, however it's likely that AMD’s partners will decide to use Intel's Core i7-6700K “Skylake” processors in future models.
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The PC's tiny form factor is thanks to an ASRock mini-ITX motherboard that sits in the bottom, housing two miniaturized R9 Fury X GPUs thanks to AMDs new High Bandwidth Memory. Another way to save space within the chassis is by moving the power supply outside of the system, similar to that of a console or laptop.
Although not much else has been said about the system, the hardware within the system would appear to be upgradable, which would be a huge bonus to owning a system like this. With that being said however, AMD is simply showcasing the product (for now), and they haven't officially announced that they will be producing them. The Project Quantum was designed by AMD, but it is unclear who will handle manufacturing. It is likely that certain contractors will assemble the barebone, leaving final assembly to AMD and their partners.
AMD’s Project Quantum PCs will ship with Microsoft Windows 10 and DirectX 12, and should hopefully be available within the fourth quarter. Pricing is unknown at this stage, but do not expect such systems to be affordable. AMD and its partners will clearly charge a premium price for a premium system.