AMD 2013, 2014 and 2015 GPU codenames

AMD's Radeon HD 6000 series was codenamed Northern Islands, it's succeeded by the Radeon HD 7000 "Southern Islands" and in 2013 we can expect the first Radeon HD 8000 parts, which are named after "Sea Islands". The Radeon HD 8870 and Radeon HD 8850 for instance are reportedly based on the 28nm Oland GPUs, a reference to Sweden's second largest island.

These chips will target the performance of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680, and will remain without real competitor until NVIDIA's Maxwell GPU hits the scene. One of the major architectural changes in Sea Islands will be the Unified Address Space between the GPU and the CPU, as well as the ability to use page-able system memory via CPU pointers.

According to an article, AMD will continue the trend in 2014 with "Volcanic Islands". This GPU series will go head-to-head against NVIDIA's Maxwell and Intel's second-gen Xeon Phi architecture. Volcanic Islands will be the first GPU family from AMD to be manufactured at 20nm Gate-Last process, giving the company freedom to choose between the Common Platform Alliance (IBM, GlobalFoundries and Samsung) as well as long-term partner TSMC. This will also be the year when we'll see full system integration between the CPU and GPU. The APU (for consumers and servers) will extend to the discrete graphics card and treat it as an integral part, and the other way around.

For 2015 the current codename is "Pirates Islands", this lineup reportedly brings tribute to pirates like Blackbeard, Captain Hook, and Captain Jack Sparrow. AMD's engineers are targeting the 20nm process with 14nm APUs in mind, but work on these chips only started recently. By 2016, AMD should have completed its Islands cadence, and the GPU should have equal capabilities of communications as the CPU and be able to directly address and accelerate CPU routines.

Tagged as: codenames

PhazeDelta1
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#4414333 Posted on: 09/20/2012 10:48 PM

My bad. I read that article wrong. :nerd:

Redemption80
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#4414346 Posted on: 09/20/2012 10:58 PM

Well if 8870 really is ~40-50% faster VS. 7870, that's if I take those leaked spec. for granted (~ 7970 perf. or few % faster), then I have no doubt full GCN2 - 8900 will be a killer.

And GK110 is almost 2x 670GTX if not few % more, then yes imo it will be a big jump even for GTX680 & HD7970 users. Not to mention us with older high-end 40nm gpus.

Anyway I see a worthy upgrade in the near future, finally

I can see you just being disappointed again.

If the 8970 has the same 40-50% proposed jump in performance then it won't be anymore of an upgrade than the 7970 was over a 6970.

As for Nvidia, i still see no proof GK110 will ever arrive as a gaming card, and if it does it will be cut way down to meet price/power consumption requirements.
Twice the 670 performance would mean it would destroy the 8970, and i don't think that is likely either.

Hope i'm wrong as i could do with a new fast, cheap GPU, but I just don't share your optimism.
It makes zero business sense to bring out a GPU a year later that is twice as fast as the previous one when you can just bring out one that is 30-50% as they know lots of people are going to buy them anyway.

FerCam
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#4414399 Posted on: 09/21/2012 12:04 AM

I can see you just being disappointed again.

If the 8970 has the same 40-50% proposed jump in performance then it won't be anymore of an upgrade than the 7970 was over a 6970.

As for Nvidia, i still see no proof GK110 will ever arrive as a gaming card, and if it does it will be cut way down to meet price/power consumption requirements.
Twice the 670 performance would mean it would destroy the 8970, and i don't think that is likely either.

Hope i'm wrong as i could do with a new fast, cheap GPU, but I just don't share your optimism.
It makes zero business sense to bring out a GPU a year later that is twice as fast as the previous one when you can just bring out one that is 30-50% as they know lots of people are going to buy them anyway.And that's why capitalism rules (not) and my country is the pinnacle of that ("Poortugal")
But the new way of communication of the future gpus (probably hd 9xxx or hd 10xxx) with the cpu and system memory looks quite interesting though.

Lane
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#4416513 Posted on: 09/24/2012 02:26 AM

wc cftech.com/amd-radeon-hd-8970-venus-xtx-hd-8950-venus-xtpro-sea-islands-gpu-specifications-leaked/ ( remove the space and copy paste )

Posted by iMacmatician ( beyond 3D )

From WCCFTech: "AMD Radeon HD 8970 (Venus XTX) and HD 8950 (Venus XT/Pro) Sea Islands GPU Specifications Leaked."

Venus chip:

- ~420 mm^2
- 5.1 billion transistors

Card specs:

- 2560 SPs, 160 TMUs, 32-48 ROPs (8970) and 2304 SPs, 144 TMUs, 32 ROPs (8950)
- Boost clocks higher than 1050 MHz
- 384-bit bus, 3 GB GDDR5 at "6GHz +" for > 320 GB/s bandwidth, that would imply ≥ 6.67 Gbps
- Dual 8-pin connectors
- Q4 2012 mass production, Q1 2013 release

Dunno if they are real, or not, but thoses spec look logical for this chip. ( outside the name, i was think venus is for mobile parts, but i could be wrong )

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AMD 2013, 2014 and 2015 GPU codenames

Posted by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/20/2012 11:55 AM | 34 comment(s) ]