AMD Radeon HD 7000M GPU Series Unveiled

AMD's Radeon HD 7000-series graphics cores should make their entrance in the market not too long away from now and recently the specifications of a wide series of the mobile version of these GPUs were leaked on the Web.

On the notebook front, the HD 7000-series will be comprised of five different graphics cores addressing the needs of a wide range of users ranging from the low-end to the enthusiast sectors.

Little is known about the most powerful of these GPUs, based on the Wimbledon, Heathrow and Chelsea designs, apart from a preliminary set of operating frequencies and the memory installed, but AMD's the mid-range and entry-level solutions are a lot better documented.

According to ComputerBase, the publication who got a hold of this info, the Thames and Seymour GPUs will be used by AMD in no less than 14 mobile graphics cores from the Radeon HD 7000 series.

Of these solutions, eight are based on the mainstream Thames core and these are expected to have TDPs ranging from 15 to 25 Watts thanks mainly to the transition from the 40nm process technology to the 28nm node. The Thames GPU will actually be available in four different versions, dubbed XT, Pro, LP and LE, which will be used to power the Radeon HD 7600M and HD 7500M notebook graphics cards.

Moving to the entry-level Seymour graphics cores, these will be marketed as the Radeon HD 7400-series and all include a 64-bit memory bus. Unlike its more powerful siblings, Seymour GPUs will be manufactured using the same 40nm process technology as that of the current AMD Radeon HD 6000 GPUs.

It appears that Nvidia will go for a similar approach (paring 40nm and 28nm parts) with their GeForce 600M GPUs, which seems to suggest that both graphics chip makers have troubles with TSMC's 28nm production node.