# AMD HD7000 (Southern Islands) Series GPU’s Revealed through Catalyst 11.7



## Jaskanwar Singh (Jul 2, 2011)

AMD HD7000 (Southern Islands) Series GPU's Revealed through Catalyst 11.7



> AMD’s upcoming HD7000 Series (Southern Islands) GPU details have been leaked through Catalyst 11.7. We already detailed AMD’s next generation Graphics Architecture here which would be used inside the upcoming 7000 series cards.
> 
> According to the chart, AMD is looking forward to release a new Dual Chip based card based on the NewZealand Core named HD 7990 which would be its next Flagship card. Single chip based High end GPU’s would consist of Tahiti XT based HD7970 and Tahiti Pro based HD7950 which are replacements for the Antilles based HD6970/6950 graphics cards.
> 
> ...



*img18.imageshack.us/img18/3739/southernislandsnc.jpg


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## ashis_lakra (Jul 2, 2011)

what is q4 release ?


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## ssk_the_gr8 (Jul 2, 2011)

^^ 4th quarter


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## vickybat (Jul 2, 2011)

Excellent find jas. The 7series cards are certainly gonna be powerhouses. My next gpu will either be 7 series or kepler, whichever performs better.

Amd's lineup looks very strong and nvidia needs to come up with something radically different in order to compete with amd's new architecture based gpu's.


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## max_snyper (Jul 2, 2011)

good info "jas" hey BTW are they gonna add some new technology in the southern island series such as ray tracing,improvisation in tessalation in mid-high cards or its gonna be just die shrink for the current series.


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## tkin (Jul 2, 2011)

max_snyper said:


> good info "jas" hey BTW are they gonna add some new technology in the southern island series such as ray tracing,improvisation in tessalation in mid-high cards or its gonna be just die shrink for the current series.


Nothing major, ray tracing is not a technology, and its too demanding even for 28nm gpus, I sense cooler cards, and also 2k Shader count for AMD and 700ish shaders for nvidia, performance should go up by 20% average at same clock speed.


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## comp@ddict (Jul 2, 2011)

ashis_lakra said:


> what is q4 release ?



September to October, I'm telling you, either the HD7900 or HD7800 series releases (HD7900 most probably).

This is gonna be epic, lets see if CU makes any improvements in "gaming" over VLIW-4D


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Jul 2, 2011)

comp@ddict said:


> September to October, I'm telling you, either the HD7900 or HD7800 series releases (HD7900 most probably).
> 
> This is gonna be epic, lets see if CU makes any improvements in "gaming" over VLIW-4D



i think Q4 starts from October and till December!
Calendar year - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

so it can be any of those months.

(just joking man! )



vickybat said:


> Excellent find jas. The 7series cards are certainly gonna be powerhouses. My next gpu will either be 7 series or kepler, whichever performs better.
> 
> Amd's lineup looks very strong and nvidia needs to come up with something radically different in order to compete with amd's new architecture based gpu's.





max_snyper said:


> good info "jas" hey BTW are they gonna add some new technology in the southern island series such as ray tracing,improvisation in tessalation in mid-high cards or its gonna be just die shrink for the current series.



thanks guys.


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## nilgtx260 (Jul 2, 2011)

yo guys, it's a general knowledge, each quarter means 3 months, so Q4 means OCT to DEC, I am thrilled now


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## comp@ddict (Jul 2, 2011)

> i think Q4 starts from October and till December!



No kidding, but all rumour keep shouting September.

And a historic moment September too, for it was DX11 launch with full 40nm hardware(HD4770 was a test drive), the majestic HD5800 series if we remember, 2 years ago.

*semiaccurate.com/2011/06/29/amd-southern-islands-possible-for-september/


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## vickybat (Jul 2, 2011)

^^ Looking forward to 7 series. Heard that they are rumoured to give around twice the performance of the current 6 series line up courtesy the new unamed architecture.

That means a 7850 thames gpu might provide close to a 6850 cf bart chips. If this is possible, then expect some radical improvements in gpu computations.


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## masterkd (Jul 3, 2011)

eagerly waiting for 7 series..if nvidia doesn't come up with something better its definitely my next buy..i hope linux drives become better too!!


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## vickybat (Jul 3, 2011)

^^ Nvidia too is coming with its kepler architecture which they will disclose in a couple of months( most probably).

So the fight will commence again between these two heavyweights.


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## comp@ddict (Jul 3, 2011)

nVidia Kepler got taped out a few days ago.

Expect to see rumours of working samples in 4 months and a launch(if all goes well, unlike Fermi), in 6-8 months.


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## Skud (Jul 3, 2011)

Yeah, its been reported by Fudzilla too.


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## mukherjee (Jul 3, 2011)

Should I then hold the purchase of GTX560Ti Hawk??


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## tkin (Jul 3, 2011)

mukherjee said:


> Should I then hold the purchase of GTX560Ti Hawk??


Read my post here:
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/pc-components-configurations/143239-gaming-rig-85k.html#post1442740


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## mukherjee (Jul 3, 2011)

tkin said:


> Read my post here:
> *www.thinkdigit.com/forum/pc-components-configurations/143239-gaming-rig-85k.html#post1442740



Yea...just read that...quenched a lot of questions in a lot on minds


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## tkin (Jul 3, 2011)

mukherjee said:


> Yea...just read that...quenched a lot of questions in a lot on minds


Hope it helped, most people say OMG!! 5850>>>4850, but do not compare the price.

One more example:

Launch Price of 5850 was 259$, it was selling for 270$ after launch

Launch Price of 6950 was 299$.

Here's the bench: AnandTech - Bench - GPU11

See what I mean? 6950 improved tessellation but that's all it did.


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## comp@ddict (Jul 3, 2011)

> See what I mean? 6950 improved tessellation but that's all it did.



It brought greater performance per watt, a huge HUGE increase, and under the same 40nm manufacturing process.

Plus, output per mm^2 increased.

So I think HD6950 did a LOT over HD5850.


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## tkin (Jul 3, 2011)

comp@ddict said:


> It brought greater performance per watt, a huge HUGE increase, and under the same 40nm manufacturing process.
> 
> Plus, output per mm^2 increased.
> 
> So I think HD6950 did a LOT over HD5850.


What do we indians(and most other people) think before buying the GPU? Performance per dollar(or INR), and in that regard 6950 brought how much to the table? 

Output/mm2 increased right? So they intentionally made the chip smaller to give less output that it could have given if the chip size remained same as 5850, so there you go.


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## comp@ddict (Jul 4, 2011)

> What do we indians(and most other people) think before buying the GPU? Performance per dollar(or INR), and in that regard 6950 brought how much to the table?


Haha yeah performance per dollar/rupees true.

Strictly speaking to that respect, HD6850 is the top VFM not HD6950(check charts in every review site)



> Output/mm2 increased right? So they intentionally made the chip smaller to give less output that it could have given if the chip size remained same as 5850, so there you go.



No, HD6950s die is 389mm^2 AFAIR(remember), and HD5850 is 334mm^2.

But at the cost of increased die space, AMD incorporated 2x the tessellation engines, and increased performance too, although HD5870 and HD6950 are close in performance, HD6950 still leads, and the DX11 performance, which is crucial for next gen, has been considerably improved. Overall, HD6900 and HD6800 series are an epic win for AMD.


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## nilgtx260 (Jul 5, 2011)

^^ I agree on that, if you compare dx11 performance of AMD vs NVIDIA, AMD has improved a lot with their new HD 68xx/69xx series.


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## comp@ddict (Jul 5, 2011)

> ^^ I agree on that, if you compare dx11 performance of AMD vs NVIDIA, AMD has improved a lot with their new HD 68xx/69xx series.



Yeah HD6800 Barts is a real winner man, fewer transistors, much smaller die size, yet comparable performance to HD5800, winner man winner.

HD6900 series was kinda like a test of VL4WD, much like HD4770 was a test of 40nm.


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## AcceleratorX (Jul 6, 2011)

AMD had better fix their AF quality issues in the HD 7000 series. The Radeons are right now huge value for money, but a bug definitely exists in the AF implementation and it's disappointing to see the output compared to an NVIDIA card in the very few games that have a noticeable difference (i.e. 90% of games are not affected).

Having used both the 5000 series and the Fermi GPUs, I can say for sure that Fermi produces better AF. Of course, the 6850 still doesn't have a proper competitor yet. AMD is extreme VFM (NVIDIA has GTX 460 but it's really hit and miss because the performance relative to the 6850 depends on the game....).


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## tkin (Jul 6, 2011)

AcceleratorX said:


> AMD had better fix their AF quality issues in the HD 7000 series. The Radeons are right now huge value for money, but a bug definitely exists in the AF implementation and it's disappointing to see the output compared to an NVIDIA card in the very few games that have a noticeable difference (i.e. 90% of games are not affected).
> 
> Having used both the 5000 series and the Fermi GPUs, I can say for sure that Fermi produces better AF. Of course, the 6850 still doesn't have a proper competitor yet. AMD is extreme VFM (NVIDIA has GTX 460 but it's really hit and miss because the performance relatie to the 6850 depends on the game....).


AF is fixed with 69xx series, I had used 3d filter tester and verified on my friends pc.


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## AcceleratorX (Jul 6, 2011)

^If that is so, then it is good news.....


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Jul 6, 2011)

> We got word that Kepler, Nvidia's successor to Fermi architecture and its first 28nm part won’t launch until Q1 2012.
> 
> Our sources from the Far East are telling us that it’s the maturity of the 28nm process is to blame and that the chip could theoretically make it to very late Q4 2011 launch, but sources close to company are telling them that it would not make much sense to launch it that late in the quarter.
> 
> ...



Kepler 28nm to launch in Q1 2012

AFAIK tkin made a point about 28nm sometime back


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## tkin (Jul 6, 2011)

All I said was when a die shrink happens, unless its from their own fabs, companies do not start production with high/mid range parts, they start with low ends like for 55nm 9800GTX+(not the GT2xx series), and for 40nm amd's 4770 or GT2xx series from nvidia, then move to high/mid end models, and lastly ultra high end models, all you guys remember 58xx series, and all of you remember how supply was constraint for the first few months, a very few 58xx specially 5850 came to the market regularly and got swiped in an hour or so(new egg, tiger direct etc).

So I expect, low end/mobile 28nm gpus to launch by october this year, something like 7770 or 7850/7870 to replace 6850/6870 with 20-30% performance boost max, then later by dec-feb 2012 the rest will launch, ultra high ends(7990) comes last. 

And also remember for same price point you will not get more than 30% boost at a time, so you can expect 570/6970 like performance for 15k in first round.


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## MegaMind (Jul 28, 2011)

Guys any news on release of HD7000 Series?? Cant find any..


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## Skud (Jul 28, 2011)

Expect at least a month before Christmas.


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## Omi (Jul 29, 2011)

I guess I will wait, its too tempting!
AMD's new cpu and 7xxx



> The Southern Island family is to enter mass production in May 2011,[6] with the first samples shown at the AMD Fusion Development Summit (June 13-16, 2011).[7] AMD plans to release the first Southern Islands cards in 2011.[8] Some sources speculate as early as September, though "2011" is the only official news.


Source Wiki


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## Skud (Jul 29, 2011)

Are they going to release BD and HD 7xxx at the same time? That would be highly interesting.


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## Omi (Jul 29, 2011)

That's highly possible, or may be very shortly after, also their comics show Ruby with all the others (I know its preety lame to draw conclusion from a comic but whats bad in speculating  )


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## Skud (Jul 29, 2011)

I remember they were doing all these sort of things back in Athlon 64 days also. Hope the product will be such good.


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## MegaMind (Jul 29, 2011)

Skud said:


> Are they going to release BD and HD 7xxx at the same time?



No, they announced the release of bulldozer on sep 19..


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## Skud (Jul 29, 2011)

I know, I was specifically asking about the HD 7000, as there are speculations that AMD might release them in September.


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## Omi (Jul 29, 2011)

AMD Southern Islands and Nvidia Kepler May Use Different 28nm Processes



> Initially, both of these chips were supposed to be built using the 28nm HKMG high-performance processes, but it seems like TSMC is having some issues with it and that it won't be available until the first quarter of 2012.
> 
> As a result, AMD apparently switched to 28nm HPL for Southern Islands, which is also based on the HKMG technology but is tuned for low power.
> 
> ...



Might be a reason for so few reveals of Kepler

Another News From Xbitlabs


> AMD Vows to Beat Nvidia with First 28nm GPUs on the Market


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## MegaMind (Aug 10, 2011)

Any latest news on 7xxx series release..


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## Skud (Aug 10, 2011)

I got only this:

AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series to be PCI-Express 3.0 Compliant | techPowerUp


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## MegaMind (Aug 10, 2011)

Skud said:


> I got only this:
> 
> AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series to be PCI-Express 3.0 Compliant | techPowerUp



Hmmm so still not sure of the release.. Guess i should go for HD6xxx/GTX5xx


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## Skud (Aug 10, 2011)

Definitely before Christmas. AMD generally doesn't miss this time to introduce new GPUs.


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## MegaMind (Aug 10, 2011)

Hmm if before Christmas i shall wait..


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## comp@ddict (Aug 19, 2011)

Wait for another month. Things will pop out soon,


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## MegaMind (Aug 24, 2011)

^^Will do.. Guys, Any update


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Sep 9, 2011)

Google Translate

Rambus - XDR™2 Memory vs. GDDR5


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## vickybat (Sep 9, 2011)

^^ 7xxx series will use xdr2 as vram?? WOW!!!!


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## MegaMind (Sep 10, 2011)

*Guys, a bad news....*


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## Extreme Gamer (Sep 10, 2011)

MegaMind said:


> *Guys, a bad news....*


That is great news.

XDR2 offers 2.5x the bandwidth of GDDR5 

It will be interesting to see how Nvidia reacts. GDDR5 vs XDR2 (unless Nvidia also opts for Rambus. Highly unlikely given their legal history).


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## sukesh1090 (Sep 10, 2011)

^^the bad news is that it is launching on Q1 2012 which was supposed to be Q4 2011.


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## Extreme Gamer (Sep 10, 2011)

Meh. It doesnt matter. Nvidia too has delayed their launch to 2012.

This gives AMD more time to perfect the use of the Rambus tech.

XDR2 is way more expensive than GDDR5 btw. So finally it has come down to reasonable price levels.


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## d6bmg (Sep 11, 2011)

sukesh1090 said:


> ^^the bad news is that it is launching on Q1 2012 which was supposed to be Q4 2011.



Not exactly a bad news, considering the fact that late release means more stable product release, and lesser chance of fault in the card. More value for money & obviously, increased rivalry with nVidia. 



Jaskanwar Singh said:


> Google Translate
> 
> Rambus - XDR™2 Memory vs. GDDR5



thanks for the link.


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## gameranand (Sep 16, 2011)

Thanks for the link for comparision. I am quite happy to see the tech behind but yes its a bad news for me to see about release dates as I am to buy a PC but because of telayed. First bulldozer and now this. I thought I'll buy in Q4 2011 bur now it seems to be Q1 2012.


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## Jaskanwar Singh (Sep 16, 2011)

AMD 28nm GPU Demo w/ Radeon HD 7000 series video card : ATI Forum


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