AMD Launching 'Volcanic Islands' GPUs in 2013

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AMD's next generation "Volcanic Islands" GPUs will be arriving later this year.

Rage3D recently went on a tour of AMD’s Austin Campus and sat down with the company’s CPU Architect, Jim Keller, and its Business Transformation Officer (BTO), Checkib Akrout. The discussion covered the company's future plans, its new CPU architectures, and provided the long awaited confirmation that the “Volcanic Islands” GPUs will arrive this year.

“The Sea Islands codename encompasses the PS4 chip, as well as the new mobile chips announced at CES, and the Bonaire GPU found in the Radeon HD 7790. I bring this up because it shows the people inside AMD continue to work hard, long hours to deliver great products amongst the turmoil shown in the press.The next generation of graphics cards -- Volcanic Islands -- is coming this year and shaping up nicely. When you name products after places, it leads to interesting thoughts about where to hold events surrounding that namesake product. Typically places that are cheap to get travel to internationally for a worldwide congregation are preferred, so I'm off to renew my passport on the off chance I'm headed to Reykjavik later this summer. But I sure as hell wouldn't complain about being sent to Honolulu, either.”

Tarun Iyer
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32 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bison88
    None of this makes sense, or are they just removing Sea Islands (HD 8xxx Series) from the lineup since it got delayed and pushing straight to Volcanic Islands (HD 9xxx Series) that was due in 2014?
    Reply
  • nvidiamd
    this is a good move. nvidia will be rebranding their cards, while amd will give new architecture to the market. so those who got gtx 400/500 and radeon 5000/6000 will be choosing amd :)
    Reply
  • Novuake
    Now this was out of the blue, was not expecting next gen GPUs until at least Christmas and now both AMD and Nvidia seemed to be hinting at an earlier release!
    Boojaah!
    Reply
  • Novuake
    10782952 said:
    None of this makes sense, or are they just removing Sea Islands (HD 8xxx Series) from the lineup since it got delayed and pushing straight to Volcanic Islands (HD 9xxx Series) that was due in 2014?

    This is not the first time this has happened. Besides, Sea Island is out there in mobile GPUs and on the HD7790. So yeah, don't know what you on about?
    Reply
  • DRosencraft
    This would be awesome if it pans out. It could easily have been a misstatement, but hopefully that's not the case since I was just thinking about when to start looking to upgrade from my 6950.
    Reply
  • vmem
    hmm, Nvidia rebranding current products and selling the only new tech at extreme price points (Titan at $1k, 780 rumored to be $699...). if AMD comes out with new architecture, it can potentially rival the 780 or even the Titan at a much lower price point. plus with all the extra game optimizations they'll have due to new consoles, I think AMD's got a nice set up to dominate the graphics market for the coming year
    Reply
  • Novuake
    10783089 said:
    hmm, Nvidia rebranding current products and selling the only new tech at extreme price points (Titan at $1k, 780 rumored to be $699...). if AMD comes out with new architecture, it can potentially rival the 780 or even the Titan at a much lower price point. plus with all the extra game optimizations they'll have due to new consoles, I think AMD's got a nice set up to dominate the graphics market for the coming year

    As usual it will probably not pan out that way... Besides no competition can go to AMDs head too...
    Reply
  • vmem
    plus, there's leaked info on TPU and I think Guru that indicate the volcanic island flagship (9970?) may well have twice the performance of 7970 if specs are any indication:
    http://www.techpowerup.com/183704/amds-answer-to-geforce-gtx-700-series-volcanic-islands.html
    I'm ogling at those 4096 processing units lol
    Reply
  • Novuake
    10783102 said:
    plus, there's leaked info on TPU and I think Guru that indicate the volcanic island flagship (9970?) may well have twice the performance of 7970 if specs are any indication:
    http://www.techpowerup.com/183704/amds-answer-to-geforce-gtx-700-series-volcanic-islands.html
    I'm ogling at those 4096 processing units lol

    For once I actually think this could be true... Double performance, no. That many stream processors, yes.

    Since Nvidia is cramming so many CUDA cores into their top tier card and the claiming supremacy(makes me think of Volkswagen stunt with the Bugatti Veyron that almost bankrupt them), why should AMD not do the same?
    Reply
  • vmem
    10783120 said:
    For once I actually think this could be true... Double performance, no. That many stream processors, yes.

    Since Nvidia is cramming so many CUDA cores into their top tier card and the claiming supremacy(makes me think of Volkswagen stunt with the Bugatti Veyron that almost bankrupt them), why should AMD not do the same?

    I fully understand your skepticism about the performance and my rational side tells me that you're right. but a man can dream right? :P

    as for the Titan, it was a terrible stunt, and I'm hoping AMD corrects this with the volcanic islands series and prices things correctly. it would be terrible if top-tier performance suddenly becomes $1000 rather than $400-500... the dollar did not depreciate that fast over the last year...
    Reply