AMD has once again promised to launch the first graphics circuit at 28nm this year, with rumors of early December. According to the latest information the launch of the next generation graphics cards from AMD will take until 2012, but bring substantial performance improvements.
While waiting for 28nm and the new graphics circuits from AMD and NVIDIA have felt longer and longer away for each day that passes. AMD told NordicHardware that its next generatio Radeon graphics cards, the HD 7000 series won’t come until 2012. During the latest conference call AMD once again stated that it is planning to ship 28nm graphics circuits in 2011 already, but shipping and launching are two different things.
Rage3D conforms from multiple sources that a launch in 2012 is indeed correct. The first graphics circuits at 28nm will not launch until Q1 2012. This is as suspected due to TSMC being unable to deliver on 28nm, either it has problems or the volumes are not up to match the demand.
But the good news is that the next generation cards will not disappoint. The graphics card is based on a GPU that will ne on the level, or close to HD 6990, which uses two Cayman circuits. While both AMD and NVIDIA will most likely launch the lower-end 28nm circuits first and then climb upward, making this a very interesting Winter if all pans out.
We see no reason not to trust this, since it is according to the market trends we have every time a new architecture comes along. During the transition to a new node it is about the same performance improvements as we hear about here. The 28nm node enables twice the transistor density as 40nm, with lower energy consumption and higher potential for clock frequencies. It is also the new performance circuit from AMD that will be based on the new GCN architecture.
