AMD released its ATI Catalyst 10.8 drivers recently, and now, some codenames of upcoming GPUs have been found listed in them. What’s certainly perplexing is that even though everyone knows the Southern Islands GPUs are the next slated release, these codenames have NI, or Northern Islands, attached to them, even on some obviously Southern Islands of the West Indies, such as Antilles, Barts, Caicos, Cayman, Seymour, and Turks. Whistler and Blackcomb are the only two actual Northern Islands of the Caribbean on the list .The consensus so far is that the 35 new cards listed in the atiicdxx.da_ file are the codenames of what’s coming up next, i.e., 40nm, and we can expect the temporarily shelved 32nm Northern Island GPUs much later.
While a lot of correlation with the naming schemes of the current generation of ATI GPUs has revealed some interesting facts about the revealed graphic cards, no specifications are known yet. Ten Cayman cards are thought to be part of ATI’s professional FirePro cards, with their GL prefix. Of the remaining, XT would be the top end of the series (like the HD 5870), PRO the mid-end (like the HD 5850), and LE the low end (like the HD 5830). LP is thought to stand for low power, or, it could simply be a code refresh to the LE tag. Finally, the Gemini prefix is thought to indicate dual GPUs. The GPUs are probably not lmited to just desktop, workstation and notebook graphics, but some may refer to embedded and FireStream products as well. Check out the entire list below:
223,CAYMAN GL XT (6700),NI CAYMAN
224,CAYMAN GL XT (6701),NI CAYMAN
225,CAYMAN GL XT (6702),NI CAYMAN
226,CAYMAN GL XT (6703),NI CAYMAN
227,CAYMAN GL PRO (6704),NI CAYMAN
228,CAYMAN GL PRO (6705),NI CAYMAN
229,CAYMAN GL (6706),NI CAYMAN
230,CAYMAN GL LE (6707),NI CAYMAN
231,CAYMAN GL (6708),NI CAYMAN
232,CAYMAN GL (6709),NI CAYMAN
233,CAYMAN XT (6718),NI CAYMAN
234,CAYMAN PRO (6719),NI CAYMAN
235,ANTILLES PRO (671C),NI CAYMAN
236,ANTILLES XT (671D),NI CAYMAN
237,BLACKCOMB XT/PRO (6720),NI BLACKCOMB
238,BLACKCOMB LP (6721),NI BLACKCOMB
239,BLACKCOMB XT/PRO Gemini (6724),NI BLACKCOMB
240,BLACKCOMB LP Gemini (6725),NI BLACKCOMB
241,BARTS GL XT (6728),NI BARTS
242,BARTS GL PRO (6729),NI BARTS
243,BARTS XT (6738),NI BARTS
244,BARTS PRO (6739),NI BARTS
245,WHISTLER XT (6740),NI WHISTLER
246,WHISTLER PRO/LP (6741),NI WHISTLER
247,WHISTLER XT/PRO Gemini (6744),NI WHISTLER
248,WHISTLER LP Gemini (6745),NI WHISTLER
249,ONEGA (6750),NI TURKS
250,TURKS XT (6758),NI TURKS
251,TURKS PRO (6759),NI TURKS
252,SEYMOUR XT/PRO (6760),NI SEYMOUR
253,SEYMOUR LP (6761),NI SEYMOUR
254,SEYMOUR XT/PRO Gemini (6764),NI SEYMOUR
255,SEYMOUR LP Gemini (6765),NI SEYMOUR
256,CAICOS GL PRO (6768),NI CAICOS
257,CASPIAN PRO (6770),NI CAICOS
258,CAICOS PRO (6779),NI CAICOS
A Turkish website called Donanimhaber has announced its expected release for the schedule for some of the above named ATI Radeon HD 6000 series, which starts of with Radeon HD 6700 series, codenamed Barts, releasing this October. November should be the ATI Radeon HD 6800 series, codenamed Cayman. The flagship chip, replacing the HD 5970, is expected to be the Antilles, a dual-GPU Cayman 6870 (without the lowered clock speeds of the HD 5970), branded as the HD 6970, which is supposedly due out in December. A 6950 card, the Antilles PRO, is also expected at some point.
Turks and Caicos are thought to be the HD 6600 and 6500 cards, and will apparently release in Q1 2011.