AMD just launched the Radeon HD 7800 series graphics cards, consisting of two models, the Radeon HD 7870, and the Radeon HD 7850, targeting crucial price-points that appeal PC gamers. The two models are based on new 28 nm silicon by AMD, codenamed "Pitcairn," which packs 2.8 billion transistors. The new chip takes advantage of AMD's Graphics CoreNext architecture.

The Radeon HD 7870 packs 1280 GCN stream processors, 80 texture memory units (TMUs), 32 raster operations units, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, holding 2 GB of memory. This card is AMD's second "GHz Edition" model (after the Radeon HD 7770), sporting a core clock speed of 1 GHz. The memory is clocked at 1200 MHz (4.80 GHz GDDR5 effective).The Radeon HD 7850, on the other hand, has 1024 stream processors, and 64 TMUs. The ROP count, memory bus width, type, amount, and clock speed remain the same. Its core is clocked at 860 MHz. The Radeon HD 7870 reference design graphics card starts at US $349, and the Radeon HD 7850 at US $249. Market availability is expected starting March 19.