Report: First AMD 28nm GPU Due in December
AMD may be unveiling its first 28 nm graphics chips before the end of the year.
Industry sources told Germany's heise online that AMD is targeting December 6 as a launch date.
There was no information which architecture these new GPUs will be based on, but there appears to be reason to believe that AMD may be unveiling performance desktop boards, which will become available in very limited quantities in December, heise said. Due to 28 nm transition problems, it may take some time until there is enough supply to meet demand.
If heise's sources are correct, then we assume that the announcement in December will be about AMD's Southern Island GPU family, which is expected to be called the Radeon HD 7000 series. We are expecting these GPUs to use Rambus' XDR2 DRAM memory instead of GDDR5, MIMD instructions instead of VLIW, support for PowerTune as well as x86 addressing and Partially Resident Textures.
TSMC reportedly increased its pricing for 28nm products as it noticed substantially higher demand than the company initially expected. Xbit labs speculated that TSMC's capacity for 28nm wafer production is only 7000 to 10,000 units during the current fourth quarter.
This isn't the first time we've heard about the Radeon HD 7000 series though. Read more about the AMD Radeon HD 7900 and XDR2 here.
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jezus53 Marco925i could use an upgrade, lets not delay anything...ok amd?Reply
Agreed, with BF3 out I need to upgrade asap and it would be nice to get the latest and greatest. I know the 6000 series isn't that old, but I really don't want to buy one now if a new series is just around the corner! -
quangluu96 LMAO, i doubt it will fail like bulldozer :3, comon AMD i like ur gpu, but i don't have enough trust..Reply -
BlackHawk91 "TSMC reportedly increased its pricing for 28nm products as it noticed substantially higher demand" I'm not an expert but, with a higher demand shouldn't prices drop?Reply -
jrharbort The fact that XDR2 memory is being used over GDDR5 has me concerned, mainly from the pricing aspect. While the memory is insanely fast, RAMBUS products have not been known to be cheap.Reply -
laxduck26 BlackHawk91"TSMC reportedly increased its pricing for 28nm products as it noticed substantially higher demand" I'm not an expert but, with a higher demand shouldn't prices drop?Reply
Prices increase when demand increases in the short run because of limited supply. In the long run increased demand will lower prices when the market adjusts to increase overall production and takes advantage of economies of scale, but in the short run economies of scale in production cannot be realized and prices will be bid up by demanders for the limited supply of a good.
In simpler terms, for the time being TSMC can only produce a certain amount of 28nm wafer and people want more than they can produce, so they raise the price because they can make more profit. If demand for 28nm wafer stays high then they will expand their production capabilities, meaning they'll have more to sell and in order to sell all of it they'll need to lower price.
Yay economics!
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Blackhawk: It's called "we got you by the balls", it's how business is done today. Your logic is akin saying that companies spend too much money complying with regulations, therefore there'd be more jobs if we just deregulate everything.Reply
Nevermind that the cost of regulation is almost solely in hired labor to keep up with it, but supposedly if they could save money by firing those people, they could then take same said money and use it to hire even more people, even though demand won't suddenly increase to require more production. In addition, we could also enjoy the benfits of lead, mercury and asbestos being re-added to everything, and skyrocketing cancer rates near factories. -
dragonsqrrl Interesting, this runs counter to every other rumor/leak I've seen so far. Are you sure they aren't referring to the VLIW4 HD7800 series, which is scheduled to launch sometime in Q4?Reply
Everything I've seen so far points to the HD7900 series launching in Q1 2012 at the earliest.