AMD is working on three new graphics processors in the upcoming Arctic Islands

Sharply declining market shares and a cool reception of the latest generation of graphics cards are putting pressure on AMD. Although the battle between Nvidia Maxwell and Radeon “Pirate Islands” has only just begun, it already looks like AMD needs to strengthen its lineup with new and improved circuits.

The next generation Radeon goes by the code name Arctic Islands and is said to include at least three new graphics processors. The names to remember are Greenland, Baffin and Ellesmere, where the former is the most lavish variant and thus probably also the sequel to today’s Fiji, which is used in the Radeon R9 Fury series.

According to Kitguru, Greenland is the first circle in the family with a completely new architecture. Officially, it is “only” a new iteration of the familiar GCN, but in fact significant changes are being introduced. Together with the transition to 14 or 16 nanometer manufacturing technology (FinFET), there is gossip about doubled efficiency compared to today’s version.

Another key issue is that AMD is also taking the opportunity to upgrade to the second generation of stacked memory chips or High Bandwidth Memory. Judging by Samsung’s presentation, it is first and foremost about higher capacity, but also about greater bandwidth. The Korean memory giant, for example, sees graphics cards in the near future with as much as 16 GB and 1.0 TB / s.

When it comes to cousins ​​Baffin and Ellesmere, no more detailed details are known yet, but even here there is talk of completely new circuits. This may be necessary given that some of AMD’s current mid-range devices are about to turn three years old.
The first graphics cards in the Arctic Islands family are expected to appear in 2016.