AMD Tonga replaces Radeon R9 280 and 280X

The delayed transition to 20 nanometer manufacturing technology is forcing AMD and Nvidia to change their plans. The effect of this was already evident at the launch of the first graphics processor with the Maxwell architecture, which is manufactured using the same 28 nanometer technology as its predecessors.

AMD is also affected and must use existing technology for future graphics processors. A few days ago, the graphics processor Tonga, which is believed to be a response to Maxwell, was revealed, namely the Geforce GTX 750 and 750 Ti. However, that is not necessarily the whole truth.

According to information received by SweClockers, Tonga is a direct successor to the aging graphics processor Tahiti, which is used in the Radeon R9 280 and 280X, among other things. This means that the circuit will probably appear in a higher performance class than today’s Maxwell-based graphics cards.

The exact specifications are not clear, but the circuit appears to be a scaled-down version of Hawaii with a 256-bit memory bus, which can be compared to the 384-bit bus width in Tahiti. AMD compensates for this by using faster memory modules, perhaps 7.0 GHz GDDR5 or more.

The launch is expected to take place at the end of the third quarter of the year, ie in August or September.