Atari VCS will be powered by the newly unveiled AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 series

Atari delayed its nostalgic VCS gaming device last month, upgrading from the aging Bristol Ridge A10 APU to a then-undisclosed Ryzen processor. Unveiling its new embedded system-on-chips (SoC) on April 17, AMD has announced that Atari’s console will be powered by its R1000 series.

The Ryzen Embedded R1000 series consists of two models of APU, the R1606G and the R1505G. It isn’t certain which chip will be housed within the classic chassis, but there isn’t a world of difference between the two. Both are built using Zen architecture, contain a dual-core, four-thread arrangement and high-performance Vega 3 graphics to better balance power with performance.

It’s thanks to this combination that Michael Arzt, COO of Atari Connected Devices, states that the VCS can achieve “4K 60fps HDR content that users expect from a modern, secure gaming and entertainment system.” In fact, its versatility helps to “protect the VCS’ environment and content as we support an unprecedented open-access model that allows Atari’s highly-creative community to install any other operating system side by side with the Atari OS.”

Should the VCS receive the R1505G, the consoles will be endowed with a base clock of 2.4GHz and boost of 3.3GHz on the CPU, as well as a 1GHz clock on the GPU. Of course, the R1606G offers a little more with the base and boost CPU clock bumped up to 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz respectively, while the GPU clock reaches highs of 1.2GHz.

While Atari is set to bolster the performance of the Ryzen Embedded R1000 at launch, AMD has a number of other uses for the duo. Stephen Turnbull, director of product management and business development at AMD Embedded Solutions states that there are a number of applications that the SoCs are built for, including casino gaming, enterprise class security features for edge computing, networking and thin clients, with ASRock , IBASE and Quixant already confirmed as customers.

It seems as though Atari is still on track to launch its VCS console later this year, after the initial delay to its planned 2018 release.

KitGuru Says: The R1000 series looks promising, although I do find it odd that neither Atari or AMD confirmed exactly which chip will appear in the VCS. For that reason, I’m inclined to believe it’ll be the slightly lower end R1505G, but both seem to be standout offerings on paper. We’ll have to see how they fair hands-on before passing judgement, though.

Become a Patron!