AMD teased the first working 28nm notebook GPU to the public today at a media event in San Francisco, California. The chip in question, which is expected to launch as part of the upcoming AMD Radeon HD 7000 series, was shown running Dirt 3 but details such as graphics settings, resolution and FPS are unknown at this point.

The Radeon HD 7000 series carries the codename "Southern Islands" and will be built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Last we heard, AMD's next-generation of graphics cards was scheduled to arrive by the end of this year, but with rumors that TSMC is having issues with 28nm production, it's unclear whether AMD will be able to release its new GPUs in volume or if wider availability will have to wait a bit longer.


David Cummings, Director of Technology Management for AMD's GPU division shows next-gen notebook GPU

The new graphics parts are expected to support switchable graphics and continue pushing current features like Eyefinity as well as H3D stereo 3D gaming. Although no official details are available yet in terms of specifications, NordicHardware reports that AMD is initially planning four different GPUs based on the 28nm version of the VLIW4 architecture and will use them in three different series: the Radeon HD 7800, HD 7600 and HD 7500.

These GPUs will be equipped with 768 to 1536 stream processors and GDDR5 memory. Later on, the company will launch the Radeon HD 7900 series featuring the new Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture it has been talking about since June. The main idea behind GCN is to create a GPU that performs well at both graphical and computing tasks.

Below are some leaked specs for the upcoming cards, though we should note that this information remains unconfirmed.


 


Source: NordicHardware