Saturday, July 2nd 2011
AMD Southern Islands GPU Codenames Surface
It was discovered that an early version Catalyst 11.7 contains entries for new GPUs, spelling out the possible codenames of upcoming AMD Southern Islands GPUs. Southern Islands is the next generation of AMD Radeon GPUs, which will possibly see propagation of VLIW4 SIMD design to GPUs in all market segments, and possible adoption of 28 nm manufacturing process. Moving on to codenames, 3D Center observes that the top of the line GPU is codenamed "Tahiti", there is a possibility of two single-GPU variants.
A graphics card that makes use of two Tahiti chips is codenamed "New Zealand". "Thames" is the codenamed of a possible low cost mobile chip, it could also be a performance chip. There's some uncertainty here. Not much is known about another chip codenamed "Lombok", either. Perhaps it's a performance desktop chip.
Source:
3D Center
A graphics card that makes use of two Tahiti chips is codenamed "New Zealand". "Thames" is the codenamed of a possible low cost mobile chip, it could also be a performance chip. There's some uncertainty here. Not much is known about another chip codenamed "Lombok", either. Perhaps it's a performance desktop chip.
71 Comments on AMD Southern Islands GPU Codenames Surface
I think we're all hoping for a "pipe cleaner" to show the in end of Q3 beginning of Q4. A 6780 (that's the only # left) that has between 6790-6850 performance (something about a GTX460 768Mb), while lower power than a 5770.
Bring IT!
Best to have products out before making a name for yourself it's basicly what I meant, and Radeon really is creating a name for amd almost by itself :P
Here you go D:
troll much?
:rolleyes:
:laugh:
I would assume this means the low/mid rage cards could be VLIW4 with the top end cards using the new architecture like what was done with VLIW5 and VLIW4 across the 6xxx card range, does that sound right or have i taken this all the wrong way? :laugh:
But yes a lot of vague information, assumptions and guesses so until much closer to the launch or even down to launch day few people will know for sure wtf is really coming :laugh:
hopefully it should be good as they've had a fair while to perfect its design
Oh that place where the Bachelor/Bachelorette shows go to return their STDs to the wild? ;)
Nice chart, gives a decent idea about where what fits in, I presume the Lombok is the a-3850 / APU or something, would be nice if ATI did a similar chart for the upcoming / current cpu's as well.
The names is useless and might as well stay internal at ATI.
Any idea if there would be some form of performance increase maybe 8% or more seeing it is a new chip revision of the old 5XXX series ?
Would be sad if this is only a numbers bump or the same old & busted in new clothes that is slightly overclocked.
Thanks ATI, now show us what these puppy's can do. :rockout:
ATI, before the ATI7xxx release please change from only Justin Bieber songs played to your development staff to Thunder Struck from ACDC. :p It might just make financial sense.
vr-zone.com/articles/report-amd-s-28nm-mobile-gpu-roadmap/11591.html
Although that chart is likely wishful thinking, it is probably close. Just remove Thames, and move up Lompok to 78xx.
So based on current rumors and past TSMC performance, it will likely be Lompok as 78xx sometime between September, but as late as November. Thames 73xx-75xx Mobile as Dual GPU Crossfire (for A8 & A6 APUs) around the same time frame. Tahiti 79xx probably November or next year. New Zealand 7990 next year or toward the tail end of the Tahiti release.
Based on the info above. It seems that VLIW4 only survived one generation. Now GCN (graphic core next) is the new core design. Considering VLIW5 survived 4 generations (2xxx to 5xxx), ATI is really on the move again.
Seems to me, the ATI team in AMD are the creative ones and the ones bringing on the profits. Their CPU team is very slow in pumping out new stuff. Thats why the focus appears to be more GPU orientated.
I really look forward to see an APU and HD7970 working as one. Things like direct compute or OpenCL can be done on the APU with great efficiency (even more efficient that discrete GPU). Then let the powerful HD7970 do the graphics to produce blazing framerate.
fingers cross that AMD and ATI can pull this off.