AMD Now Shipping 28nm GPUs, Says CEO
AMD CEO Rory Read said that the company is currently shipping 28-nm GPUs for revenue, indicating that two new Radeon HD 7000 Series cards are on the way.
On Tuesday during an IT Supply Chain conference, AMD CEO Rory Read confirmed that the company is now shipping its next-generation graphics cores -- which are fabricated using 28-nm process technology at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) fabs -- for revenue. Actual products won't be formally announced until CES 2012 next month, he said.
"We are ramping 28-nm [products] with TSMC in Taiwan and shipping the products here and now," he said. "We are very excited about the products."
AMD's CEO didn't actually detail a specific product, but there's speculation he may be referring to the "Tahiti" GPU, which will be used in the company's upcoming Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 solutions. Even more, there are reports that the Radeon HD 7970 will actually see a limited launch on December 22 followed by a full retail release on January 9 along with the Radeon HD 7950.
The Radeon HD 7950 will reportedly arrive as a custom solution, allowing AMD partners to clock each part to their specific needs. It will also be flexible in terms of the amount of memory and 3rd-party cooling. As for the HD 7970, it will be the fastest GPU in the 7000 "Southern Islands" Series, sporting a Tahiti XT core, 2048 streaming cores operating at a 925 MHz clock, 128 texture units and an estimated 300W TDP.
According to reports, both the HD 7970 and HD 7950 will be very long cards and sport a 384-bit memory bus connected to 3 GB of VRAM (twelve GDDR5 memory chips) working at 1.37 GHz (5.5 GHz effective) to deliver 264 GB/s of memory bandwidth. They will also have two 8-pin PCI Express power connectors.
Given that AMD hasn't made any official announcements, most of the information you see here stems from supposed leaks save for Read's confirmation. We expect to hear more in a few weeks when we step foot in Las Vegas during CES 2012.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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de5_Roy oh yeah can't wait!! look at the massive memory bandwidth of the cards...264 gb/s with 384 bit bus!Reply -
jankeke crysexNot a fan of AMD. When does the GTX 600 series coming out?Reply
Apparently, the high-end 600 series will come out end 2012 or start 2013. Far too late for me.
I am building a rig starting next year and I am getting the best there is at that time, so AMD it is. I'll be waiting for Ivy bridge though. -
jgutz2006 Usually with this much next gen GPU talk, the competitor will put out some hints and try to rain on the parade... Where are u Nvidia? That said, im excited to upgrade my 5870Reply -
KelvinTy 300W TDP? A little bit too much for me...Reply
(I know it doesn't run at around 300W all the time, but seriously?) -
masterofevil22 Wow... I like my 6970 (unlocked 2GB 6950 - 890/1400), but Damn..these cards are looking really serious. over 2000+ shaders at over 900mhz stock and ~275Gb/s bandwidth... ahh...I'll be taking a look at these puppies for sure :DReply -
pierogi210 crysexNot a fan of AMD. When does the GTX 600 series coming out?Reply
Then what are you doing on the post? No one cares about your stupid feelings. -
rmpumper The only reason I would get a 7950 is if it would perform better than 6850 CF with lower power consumption. Other than that I don't see the justification in the prices of the new cards. And looking at 7970's TDP it does not seem to be looking good in power consumption department.Reply