[RumorTT] AMD Radeon HD8970 a quick refresh product

[videoclone]

Sea Islands/Canary Islands is the codename for the Next AMD graphics core. A Refresh to the HD7970 Graphics Core Next architecture.

The 2nd generation Graphic Core Next architecture is rumored to improve in the number of Stream Processors ( increased to 2304SPs ) faster Core Clock of 1225MHz and increased Memory Bandwidth but with a possible release date of this year!

With the HD7970 only just hitting stores, you could say its still way too early for the HD8000 series or to start speculating on what the HD8000 series will bring. But AMD looks to be preparing or had already planed for a quick refresh, revised HD7970 that the marketing department will most likely give it the title of HD8970.

It seams like AMD held back potential performance gains on the HD7970 so as to release a better competing product once the Nvidia GTX780 is launched.
Makes sense but should be interesting to see how things turn out.
_______________________________________

News:
RumorTT: AMD Radeon HD 8970 coming soon? http://www.tweaktown.com/news/22102/rumortt_amd_radeon_hd_8970_coming_soon/index.html
AMD to Launch its Next Generation HD 8000 GPUs, Sea Islands http://lenzfire.com/2012/01/amd-to-launch-its-next-generation-hd-8000-gpus-sea-islands-93129/

 

[blackened23]

Not surprising. With as much headroom and scalability that the tahiti has, they would be crazy to not do a refresh

 

[blastingcap]

Looks like apoppin may have been right on this one, but it wasn't exactly hard to guess, given the huge oc headroom a la GTX 460. They were probably waiting for TSMC to improve 28nm process enough to develop a sufficiently higher-clocked product for a new SKU.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

Much like the 400 to 500 series shift with Fermi.
That came very soon after.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Glad I resisted today and didn't buy a 7970

 

[gorobei]

if they are using sea islands name in the rumor then they are likely making it up. semiaccurate indicates that the real name is canary islands. the sea islands part came from an old linkedin engineers profile which he cant use the real name of the architecture but used "sea" as a generic standin to avoid nda.

 

[96Firebird]

This could kill sales of the 7xxx series, even though it is only a rumor at this point.

 

[Vesku]

If it is true, it sounds like AMD isn't going to stand still when NVIDIA does launch a 7970 killer.

Edit: The "sea islands" reference also makes me suspicious of a page view piece.

 

[Attic]

Sounds reasonable. We can hope kepler comes sooner than later.

 

[blackened23]

This could kill sales of the 7xxx series, even though it is only a rumor at this point.

I doubt it. This product won't be released for at least 7-8 months, they aren't stupid enough to cannibalize their own sales

But it does make sense given that tahiti scales so very well.

 

[nsavop]

Sounds reasonable. We can hope kepler comes sooner than later.

Judging by the lame press conference JHH just gave at CES it looks to be later, it was all Tegra and the asus transformer prime and some windows 8 tablet. Although the just announced 7 inch transformer for $250 looks like a money maker. Tegra 3 looks to be there main priority right now.

 

[videoclone]

Judging by the lame press conference JHH just gave at CES it looks to be later, it was all Tegra and the asus transformer prime and some windows 8 tablet. Although the just announced 7 inch transformer for $250 looks like a money maker. Tegra 3 looks to be there main priority right now.

Tegra 3 being made on 40nm is a bit of a fail!! when apple A6 is set for 28nm

But good luck to Nvidia for being first to market and for moving away from GPU only yet still producing very popular products on the GPU side...

But AMD is keeping the heat on Nvidia and may steel away the performance once Nvidia show up with a working 28nm chip

 

[blastingcap]

This could kill sales of the 7xxx series, even though it is only a rumor at this point.

Any more than Kepler might "kill" sales of the 7xxx series? Those who want Fastest Right Now will still buy Tahiti. Those who were going to wait and see, will keep waiting and seeing, if not for Kepler, then for HD 8xxx. There is a mushy middle though that may wait (the area between GTX 580 and, say, HD 5770, which has a lot of options both in 40nm and 28nm).

 

[Nintendesert]

Op changed. Sa was already out front of this saying any sea island rumors were wrong. Which to believe...

 

[Panopticon]

Glad I resisted today and didn't buy a 7970

Cant tell if this is sarcasm??

There will always be a something bigger and better right around the corner. If I constantly waited for refreshes I would still be rocking my Geforce 2.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Glad I resisted today and didn't buy a 7970

Serious post? I would have been pissed if I pass on the 5XXX in favor of the 6XXX series.

 

[dust]

Cant tell if this is sarcasm??

There will always be a something bigger and better right around the corner. If I constantly waited for refreshes I would still be rocking my Geforce 2.

Serious post? I would have been pissed if I pass on the 5XXX in favor of the 6XXX series.

Lol, do you "have" to buy every single generation? Maybe some of us expect a certain % improvement before making a move

 

[paul878]

Until Nvida comes out with something to compete with the 7970 there is NO reason for AMD to do anything.

 

[Panopticon]

Lol, do you "have" to buy every single generation? Maybe some of us expect a certain % improvement before making a move

Well considering im upgrading from a gtx 260 I think you may have misinterpreted my post. I'm just saying you cant always wait for the next thing bc you will always be waiting and reading forums instead of playing games and using your hardware. I think that saying your glad you didnt buy X gpu because Y gpu is coming out sometime in the unknown future is kind of silly but just my 2 cents. Something tells me my 7970 is going to be more then enough improvement over a 260.

 

[Silverforce11]

Possible release this year... nothing new, its all expected. They've done it with in the past with a refresh stopgap until the next-gen.

28nm will be busy for a long time with production for everybody including Apple, AMD doesn't need to do squat until NV release kepler and see how it competes, because 7970s are flying off the shelf.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Until Nvida comes out with something to compete with the 7970 there is NO reason for AMD to do anything.

you'd be terrible in the business world with an attitude like that

this rumor is plausible if only because of how plausible it is that Kepler will be a monster GPU that is likely going to double up (or at least come close to it) performance from Fermi given nVidia's track record with their massive GPU strategy.

With the 7970 only 5-30% faster than the GTX580 AMD would be in a world of hurt if they didn't have a refresh to soften Kepler's blow, not unlike releasing the 6900s after nVidia released fixed Fermi with the GTX580.

 

[blackened23]

you'd be terrible in the business world with an attitude like that

this rumor is plausible if only because of how plausible it is that Kepler will be a monster GPU that is likely going to double up (or at least come close to it) performance from Fermi given nVidia's track record with their massive GPU strategy.

With the 7970 only 5-30% faster than the GTX580 AMD would be in a world of hurt if they didn't have a refresh to soften Kepler's blow, not unlike releasing the 6900s after nVidia released fixed Fermi with the GTX580.

I dunno, it certainly seems like kepler is a ways off. It was not mentioned at their CES press conference -- If they had a product they would have announced it. They didn't announce anything. For reference, nvidia announced Fermi was "ready" at the 2009 CES and then released a year later...(yeah) All this talk of monster GPU this that is kind of ridiculous when there is no prototype, and there are hints of trouble at nvidia seeing as they had to drop hotclocking. That goes completely against their largest die feasible / moderate/high tdp strategy used on every gpu in recent years by NV.

 

[railven]

I can't hold out for another 6-7 months. My upgrade chance is coming up, so unless this gets announced for May, I see myself with a Tahiti XT

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Its about time AMD started playing hardball. As much as I loved my 4850 for $200 bucks I yearn for the days where the high end titans slugged it out for supremacy.

I hope this is a sign that AMD is not going to be content playing the "value" option to Nvidia any longer.

 

[nyker96]

from what OP is saying, sounds like AMD intentionally just release enough of a gpu to take the fastest gpu crown then is 'secretly' holding onto a faster product that can compete against kepler when time comes. That would mean AMD has really made leaps and bounds w/ their new design but is just looking to make a little money by release only enough to make users upgrade, then release another soon after to make user upgrade again. bit of jerk strategy in my opinion but maybe good for their bottom line. however, i think they can do this because there's really nothing else to compete against it at the moment kepler will be in Q2/2012 that's quite a while from now.