A First Look at AMD's Radeon HD8000 Series

AMD's latest beta graphics drivers revealed a few new device IDs, including four Kaveri and five Kabini graphics solutions for the next generation APUs. There are also a number of IDs for what looks like the next generation of Sea Islands GPUs, code-named Mars (9 models), Oland (3 models) and Venus (4 models).

According to predictions at 3DCenter (Google translation), Venus will be used for high-end GPUs, and it is expected to have around 5.1 billion transistors in a 410mm² die, using 28nm technology. There could be between 2 and 4 raster engines with 2560 cores, approximately 160 TMUs and 32 or 48 ROPs, and there is likely to be a 384-bit memory interface. The most powerful single-GPU card could be the Radeon HD 8970, with a 30-40% performance boost over current generation of cards.

Oland is expected to be the name given to graphics cards filling the performance sector. With an anticipated 3.2 billion transistors on a 230mm² die, this is another 28nm product. It is likely to have 2 raster engines, 96 TMUs and 32 ROPs. The full die will likely have 1536 cores and a 256-bit memory interface. The most powerful Oland based card will be the Radeon HD 8870, with a performance increase of around 20% compared to it's current generation of counterparts.

Finally, the mainstream cards will use the Mars core, the last 28nm GPU for the 2013 generation of graphics cards, with an expected 1.7 - 2.0 billion transistors in a 135 - 160mm² die. There will be 1 raster engine, 40-48 TMUs and 16 ROPs. The core count for the full die is around 768 or 896, with a 128-bit or 192-bit memory interface. The best solution provided by this core will be the Radeon HD 8770, with an expected performance boost of 35% over current generation of mainstream GPUs.

It should be noted that most of the information in this article comes from predictions made by 3DCenter.org, and should not be considered as final information at this stage. We will update this as soon as more information is available.