AMD rebadges mobile GPUs, announces HD 7000M series

AMD traditionally launches new graphics products with high-end models on the desktop and then works its way down and into laptops. This time, they are doing the exact opposite by launching the Radeon HD 7000 family on the mobile side first with the entry-level and midrange 7400M-, 7500M-, and 7600M-series. There's a reason for that, however, as it seems AMD is just making time for real next-gen Radeons to arrive.

The new GPUs are not based on the 28nm production process developed by TSMC as we'd expected. Instead, the chips employ the same 40nm Turks and Caicos GPUs that currently power the 6000M series. They're likely getting some tweaks here and there to improve performance, such as increasing the shader count and slightly boosting clock speeds compared to the 6000M parts they're replacing.

AMD hasn't revealed the actual models that are launching but provided some specifics for each series:

All three GPU families also feature DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a connectivity, as well as support for DirectX 11, AMD HD3D and Blu-ray 3D. Compared to their Radeon HD 6000M counterparts, we note that the 7500M has 80 more stream processors than the 6500M, but there's not much to tell beyond that at this point.

The launch of 28nm graphics products from AMD will happen soon enough, according to reports. Last we heard, AMD's "Southern Islands" architecture was scheduled to arrive by the end of this year, but with TSMC  having issues with 28nm production, those plans have been apparently delayed until early 2012.