AMD's first 28nm GPUs coming in December?

Shawn Knight

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AMD is said to be launching their first GPUs built on the new 28 nanometer process by the end of the year. But don’t get your hopes up as the launch will likely be on a very small scale initially and new graphics cards probably won’t hit retail until early 2012.

The news comes from German website heise.de who claims multiple industry sources have pointed to a December launch with one source specifically mentioning December 6. It’s unknown at this point if the new GPUs will target notebook or desktop markets. If the latter, we still don’t know if they would appeal to high-end users or mainstream gamers.

Another industry source is convinced that this is more of a symbolic launch than anything else, most likely in an effort to tout the fact that they beat Nvidia to market with a 28nm offering. TechPowerUp thinks that just enough GPUs will be shipped in December to head to OEMs and perhaps review sites for performance articles. They suspect initial retail parts will be lower-end or mid-range products, while Tom's Hardware has reason to believe that we will see performance desktop boards first.

AMD showed off a working 28nm notebook GPU last month at a media event in San Francisco. That chip is expected to be part of the upcoming AMD Radeon HD 7000 series and was shown running Dirt 3, although no graphics settings, resolution numbers or frame rates were provided.

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Did they bump up performance with sugar and creamy vanilla flavor? On a serious note, I hope these new cards prove to be more energy friendly, with something around a 25% - 40% performance increase :)

I also read a rumor saying they'll dump the gddr5 for some xddr2 rambus memory? Someone knows something about this?
 
I heard this rumor. Supposedly they might release the 7000 series which will use 6900 series architecture in December however, the 7900 part of the series will not be a part of that release until next year and will feature a brand new architecture. I think they are doing this in order to assure they have a stronger competition against Nvidia's next high end series.


"I also read a rumor saying they'll dump the gddr5 for some xddr2 rambus memory? Someone knows something about this?"

That was going to be true but AMD has decided not to afterall and instead are going to use GDDR5, but with 384-bit this time.
 
^^^^^ Seems a pretty much spot on appraisal.

The XDR2 thing seems to be case of people adding 2+2 and getting 5 as an answer. AMD have GPU's going into next-gen consoles -> next gen consoles could/will use XDR2 -> ergo AMD cards will use XDR2.

It still sounds like the first released parts will be mobile and a refresh/dieshrink of the oldest serving HD6000 series....so it would seem likely that the first desktop part candidates would be Barts XT/Pro (HD 6870/6850) possibly with VLIW4 as per Cayman...although considering VLIW4 is effectively dead due to AMD's announced GCN gpgpu structure, that may not be a given.
 
I don't think the HD 7000 cards OR next gen consoles will use XDR2. Rambus memory is too expensive to be viable, especially when people want game consoles for $199 bucks.
 
After all this AMD FX series shenaniggans, I might wait till Nvidias new offerings since Im changing to Intel processors once Ivy Bridge come out. Nevertheless I hope AMDs new graphics can pull some good results, my 6970 is starting to struggle.
 
I don't think the HD 7000 cards OR next gen consoles will use XDR2. Rambus memory is too expensive to be viable, especially when people want game consoles for $199 bucks.
Quite possible -and hopefully probable- the last thing anyone should want is Rambus's continued existence. 2GB of 7Gb GDDR5 IC's work out to be aound $US55 ( the reason that HD6950's use the cheaper 5Gb GDDR5 - ~$US45). XDR2 would a lot more expensive- so certainly wouln't be viable for upper mainstream cards...and you just know that Rambus would take the XDR2 users to court for some hidden patent "violation" once the cash cows get the memory standard into retail products.
 
If ATI and NVIDIA are at the same nm then NVIDIA wins. ATI needs something better than 28nm if want survive.
 
theres no ati anymore , its called amd now. why do people still use ati name its beyond me, so many dummies .... errrr
 
fwiw...Chiphell are reporting that at least some of the HD 7xxx series are possibly rebrands. The HD 7770 being the most noteable for gamers* ( a rebranded HD 6770...which of course in turn is a rebranded HD 5770)- so it might be case of carefully noting specifications before you slap down the cash on the pre-order.

* With the HD 7670, 7570, 7450 and 7350 more HTPC orientated SKU's.
 
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