AMD was rumored to launch the new graphics card series Radeon HD 7900 on January 9th, 2012. In an attempt to end 2011 on a high note AMD has decided to launch the new flagship Radeon HD 7970 on December 22nd already, without any availability.
AMD has according to sources to VR-Zone decided to speed up the launch of the flagship Radeon HD 7970 to December 22nd to end the year on a high note to give users a taste of 28nm graphics cards. The earlier launch date set in January was also questioned as a paper launch, which has become even more so with a launch by the end of December.
According to the source AMD will roll out a limited number of Radeon HD 7970 graphics card before christmas, but most likely not any kind of availability worth mentioning before the middle of January. AMD is said to stick to the launch date for little brother Radeon HD 7950 on January 9th.
AMD Radeon HD 7900 series will be the first graphics card family to be made with 28 nanometer and AMD’s new Tahiti graphics circuit will according to previous leaks build on the fresh Graphics Core Next architecture with more than 4.3 billion transistors.
| Model | Radeon HD 7970 | Radeon HD 6970 |
| Architecture | Southern Islands | Northern Islands |
| Node | 28nm | 40nm |
| Die size |
~380mm² | 389mm² |
| Circuit | Tahiti XT | Cayman XT |
| Transistors | ~4.5 miljarder | 2.64 miljarder |
| Radeon cores |
2048 | 1536 |
| GPU frequency |
925 MHz | 880 MHz |
| Memory bus |
384-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory buffer |
3 GB | 2 GB |
| Memory technology |
GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Memory frequency |
1375 MHZz (5500 MHz effectively) |
1375 MHz (5500 MHz effectively) |
| Memory bandwidth |
264 GB/s | 176 GB/s |
| ROPs | 32 | 32 |
| Texture units |
128 | 96 |
With a third of the time to test and and evaluate the new grpahics circuits from AMD both media and partners have been put under pressure. The good news is that we will have all details on the Radeon HD 7900 series before Christmas, the bas is that we will have to wait a few weeks before the cards can actually be found in stock.
Source: VR-Zone
