Ever since AMD delivered its smörgåsbord of code names for the Northern Islands family we have been digging deeper and with some reliable sources have been able to identify three new series of mobile graphics circuits with some clever code names.
Aready with the Evergreen architecture we could showyou how AMD is very careful with picking its code names. Now that the next generation graphics circuit generation is around the corner it becomes all the more obvious there is a theme running through AMD’s roadmaps, for its mobile graphics circuits we start in Canada.
ATI Technologies is basically a Canadian company and with its new mobile platlform it has focused on the Vancouver area, where we find the ski resort Cypress Mountain (reference to Cypress in Evergreen) but around the corner you find the biggest resort in North America, Whistler Blackcomb with the peaks Blackcomb Peak and Whistler Mountain but also Mount Seymour to lure visitors.
Whistler Blackcomb (Picture from Snowboarding.com)
If we move back to Catalyst 10.8 and we code names mentioned there we find the following names;
| Graphics circuit | Models |
| Blackcomb | XT/PRO LP XT/PRO Gemini LP Gemini |
| Whistler | XT PRO/LP XT/PRO Gemini LP Gemini |
| Seymour | XT/PRO LP XT/PRO Gemini LP Gemini |
AMD will be offering a load of constellation with its new mobile graphics circuits of the Vancouver family and the suffixes used looks to handle different product series. XT/PRO is most likely a way to separate products with similar performance. LP should be “low power” and the more energy efficient version, which fits well with mobiles. Gemini is a bit tricky, but gemini means twins in latin and it could very well be that Gemini is a dubbel-GPU solutions for mobiles. But on the other hand, we sincerely doubt there is a need for six different multi-GPU solutions today.
AMD has no comment to share on the news posted over the last couple of days covering the next generation DirectX 11 graphics circuits. But since we do believe it was well aware of the information found in the new Catalyst 10.8 drivers we can conclude that several of these models will be presented within the near future and throw a spanner in the Fermi works. Our sources says the first chips launch in October, something we will be covering.
