Stefan Mileschin

AMD has been announcing scant details about its Radeon HD 8000 GPUs to the jaded hacks at CES, and apparently the headline news is what their codenames will be.

According to WCCF Tech, which tried to give AMD a Chinese burn until it revealed details of its new GPU, the shock horror news was that the the 'Sea Islands' and 'Solar System' codenames will be named after islands and planets.

The AMD Radeon HD 8000 'Sea Islands' GPU is based on the GCN 2.0 architecture. They will be the Oland, which is the Radeon HD 8600 GPUm which uses the older GCN architecture, with 384 shader units, including 24 TMUs and 16 ROPs 128-bit DDR interface.

Then there is the Bonairem which will be Radeon HD 8700 GPUs where the mainstream GPU replacing the Cape Verde based HD 7700 series. Then there is the Hainan, which is the Radeon HD 8800 GPU which has a performance GPU replacing the Pitcairn based HD 7800 series. Another island is the Curacao, which will be the Radeon HD 8900 GPUs which is a high end GPU which replaced the Tahiti based HD 7900 series. Finally there is the Aruba which will be the Radeon HD 8990 GPU, which will be the flagship dual chip based on two Curacao chips.

If you are not awash with Island paradise goodness, then maybe it is time to look to the planets. We note that a mooted Pluto range has been abandoned because it did not exist and is probably just a large CPU rather than a real GPU. Also missing from the list is Uranus because no one would buy a GPU which comes too close to being a black hole.

The AMD Radeon HD 8000 Mobile 'Solar System' are made of Mars and Sun variants soon to be followed by the faster Neptune and Venus chips. The Mars chip is similar to Oland based on older GCN architecture. It has 384 shader units, including 24 TMUs and 16 ROPs 128-bit DDR interface. The Sun is a mainstream chip on base with GCN2-Bonaire-base replacement in the Radeon HD 7700m Series. It also has the interesting Page Three shaders which show Debbie, 21, of Somerset, revealing her dual cores.

There is the Neptune which is a mainstream chip on base with GCN2-Bonaire-base replacement in the Radeon HD 7800m Series. Ideally we would have thought this would be good for water cooled set ups, but apparently we were wrong.

Then there is the Venus which arises from sea and foam with its performance chip on GCN2-base on Hainan-base replacement in the Radeon HD 7900m Series.

All that AMD has not told the world is how these chips will perform, how much they will cost, and when they will hit the shops. But hey, at least we know their codenames

http://news.techeye.net/chips/amd-al...nd-in-a-vacuum