Nearly two years after their launch, the Southern Islands family from AMD is finally going to be replaced by their successor, the AMD Volcanic Islands. The AMD Volcanic Islands graphic card family including the flagship Hawaii graphics card are going to be announced at a press conference by AMD in Hawaii in the last week of September.
AMD Volcanic Islands GPU Family Possible Specifications and Mid-October Launch Revealed
It was revealed a few weeks back that AMD would commence mass shipment of their next generation graphics products (Hawaii) in mid-October:
As AMD is set to announce its next-generation high-end GPU codenamed Hawaii, graphics card players including Asustek Computer, Micro-Star International (MSI) and PowerColor are expected to start mass shipping related products in October, according to sources from the upstream supply chain. Digitimes
Videocardz, through their sources have found out the possible specifications of AMD Volcanic Islands family from a picture that is passed on from the headquarters of a main AMD AIB partner. It is not know which manufacturer it is but i think we should rather concentrate on the details rather the identity of the partner itself. The picture shows off a bunch of details regarding the memory configurations and internal codenames of these parts and it possibly looks like as if AMD is going to launch entry level products too in addition to their flagship Hawaii GPU. This could be true since AMD also launched various low-end HD 7000 series discrete GPUs the same month they launched their Radeon HD 7970 in January 2012 but those cards were meant to be for OEM-Only. Videocardz has a detailed summary of the details mentioned on the board which can be seen below:
- Two GPU variants XT and Pro (this could be either Hawaii or other GPU)
- Three memory configurations: 8x DDR5, 4x DDR5 and 8x DDR3
- Maximum memory capacity of 4GB
- Mid-October launch confirmation
- The 13xxxxxx labels could potentially mean internal PCB model markings
- Some PCB models could use both XT and PRO GPUs
- The XT/PRO+{number1}:{number2} label could mean the overclocking level of the memory and the GPU respectively
- Apparently one model (probably not the only one) will have two fans, but they need to order them first
Image is courtesy of Videocardz!
These are just the initial details we are looking at, more are expected within this month since the AMD Volcanic Islands family is official going to debut in late September. In preparation of their next generation Radeon series launch, AMD has announced massive price cuts on their current Radeon HD 7000 series cards all the way from the top tier Radeon HD 7990 down to Radeon HD 7870. The Radeon HD 7990 witnessed the biggest price cut with AMD slashing its price down to $699 from $1000 US while the Radeon HD 7970 sells for around $299-$329 and Radeon HD 7950 for $269-$299. In addition to the price cuts, AMD recently also announced their Never Settle: Foreverpromotion offering users even more value and the ability to redeem the games they want themselves rather than letting AMD choose for them. All eyes are on the upcoming Hawaii GPU as to what level of performance it delivers against the NVIDIA’s GK110 core.
