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AMD bares all with Southern Islands GPU shots
AMD's been showing off its forthcoming wares at Hot Chips, and has taken the rare step of releasing detailed die shots for its Southern Islands GPUs. According to AnandTech, the company's shy about releasing such details, since it's aiming to beat rival NVIDIA to the punch by several months. Still, it's letting us humble members of the public peer inside the gallery we've got for you below, just as long as you pinkie-swear that you won't be selling the secrets to the boys in Santa Clara, okay? %Gallery-163817%
AMD Radeon HD 7970 review roundup: supremely fast, relatively efficient
AMD's next flagship graphics card was only announced a few hours ago, and it won't arrive on the gaming public's plate until January, but already the tech punditry has tasted it, tested it and spat out a soggy little piece of paper that reads: "the fastest single-GPU card in the world." What we're really looking for, though, is the type of performance that beats older rivals like NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580 without blowing the house up like a dual-GPU product. As it turns out, most reviewers agree that is exactly what this new $549 Radeon delivers, albeit with the few caveats summarized after the break.
AMD launching next generation of Radeon graphics cards next week, shipping by end of the year
The attentive newshounds over at AnandTech have picked out a golden nugget of disclosure from AMD's earnings call last night, citing CEO Dirk Meyer as saying "we will be launching our second-generation DX11 graphics offerings next week." What he's talking about, of course, is the highly anticipated refresh of the Radeon HD 5000 series, which some recent spec leaks suggested would bring a healthy bump in performance. After announcing the new product line next week, AMD promises to flood the market with "hundreds of thousands of units," which will be shipping before the end of this quarter -- meaning you'll have a Radeon HD 6xxx in time for the holiday gaming craze if you really want it. Can't ask anymore than that, now can we?
AMD Radeon HD 6770 and 6750 spec sheets emerge, give NVIDIA cause for concern
Alright AMD, we still haven't forgiven you for burying the glorious name that was ATI, but if your next GPU refresh is as mighty as these numbers indicate, we might at least let you in from the doghouse. A slide detailing two flavors of the upcoming 40nm Barts chip has sprouted up from two independent sources online, and it shows some appreciable gains between generations. The new HD 67x0 cards appear manifestly speedier than their predecessors -- with faster clocks, more texture units, and more ROPs -- but the fun really gets going when you compare them to the HD 5870 and 5850, AMD's previous high-end cards. Memory bandwidth and pixel fillrate are identical between the HD 6750 and 5850, while the HD 6770 even manages to beat the formerly imperious 5870 in a couple of areas. Of course, this is all still unconfirmed information, but considering that Barts is only an "upper midrange" chip that's already stepping on the toes of last year's finest, we feel safe in expecting some pretty big things from the flagship Cayman silicon when it lands -- which will be soon if all these leaks and rumors are anything to go by. [Thanks, Vygantas]%Gallery-103368%
ATI leaks out Southern Islands codenames for next-gen GPUs
Um, oops? ATI's latest Catalyst driver release has dished out some info that we imagine the company didn't want to reveal quite yet. The names of some Southern Islands have been spotted -- Cayman and Antilles appear to be the flagship chips -- suggesting a refresh to the critically acclaimed Evergreen line of GPUs may not be far off. Rumors have been swirling for a while about ATI's reputed shift to island-based nomenclature, and while hard specs are nowhere to be found, we can see that the Red Team is planning an overhaul with no less than 10 new additions to its roster. Hardly unpredictable, but good to know that ATI has something to counter NVIDIA's heart-stealing GTX 460. [Thanks, Jack]
