Six months to the next generation of graphics cards in the performance class

Although both AMD and Nvidia talked about new graphics processors during the year, there is worrying silence about the Southern Islands and Geforce Kepler respectively. The next generation is manufactured in 28 nanometers, a shrinkage from today’s 40, and also uses new untested architectures.

Another point of concern is that AMD and Nvidia continue to use the contract manufacturer TSMC for the production of the circuits, a company that does not have a completely spotless past when it comes to transitions to new manufacturing technology.

Taiwanese graphics card manufacturers are now reporting to SweClockers that they do not expect any new performance models in the near future. Instead, it may take six months or more before the Radeon HD 6900 and Geforce GTX 570/580/590 are succeeded by new models. Several independent sources claim that it will not be until the spring or summer of 2012 that high-performance graphics cards from the new generation become relevant.

However, this does not mean that winter will be completely without news. Both AMD and Nvidia are expected to introduce new graphics processors, but initially only scaled-down models for laptops and cheaper graphics cards. Possibly one or two middle classes can also find out after the turn of the year.