AMD Radeon HD 8000M “Solar System” in the works

Apart from the occasional new driver, not much happens on the graphics front. AMD and Nvidia seem satisfied with the existing offering and have not announced any new products, but this may change as early as next year.

According to information received by SweClockers, AMD will soon announce new graphics circuits in the Radeon HD 8000M series, primarily intended for laptops and other compact platforms. The new orbits are part of the Solar System family and are named after planets, initially Mars and Venus.

In connection with the electronics fair CES 2013 in January, at least one manufacturer plans to present all-in-one computers with graphics circuits from the Radeon HD 8000M series. The specifications state support for DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.3 and OpenCL 1.2. However, it is not clear whether it is the existing architecture Graphics Core Next (GCN) or the new GCN2.

AMD remains at 28 nanometer manufacturing technology even for the next generation of graphics processors. Standalone graphics cards from the Radeon HD 8000 series “Sea Islands” are not expected to appear until a bit into the new year, probably in the spring or summer.