New 20nm AMD Graphics Cards Not Expected Until 2015

The new Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 and 970 have blown us away with their mixture of high performance and low power consumption; so where are the AMD cards to compete with them? We have the R9 285, but with AMD shooting down rumours about the R9 285X, we may now be waiting until 2015 before we see a new generation of cards from AMD.

The Radeon R300 series, also currently known as “Pirate Island” is still nowhere to be seen, but rumour suggests that AMD will launch their new high-end cards early next year – best estimate would be just inside 6 months. There are said to be three ranges in the Pirate Island series; the high-end “Bermuda”, the mid range “Fijian” or “Fiji” and the low-end “Treasure Island”. It is expected that the Radeon R9 380 “Fiji” will be the first to market.

It has been suggested that the cards will use a 20nm process, but with TSMC currently using their 20nm fabs for Apple products, it seems unlikely that AMD will get to market with 20nm hardware, Nvidia pushed forward with 28nm for good reason and AMD and Nvidia are likely to stay with it and skip to 16nm when the time for the next-next generation comes. However, if AMD can pull off a range of cards at 20nm, it could prove a big win for the company in this never-ending battle between themselves and Nvidia.

Pirate Island will incorporate other new AMD technologies such as GCN 2.0, we should also see improved connectivity such as HDMI 2.0 and an updated DisplayPort to stay competitive with Nvidia.

If you’re waiting for the new AMD cards, don’t hold your breath for too long; with any luck we may see something new on display at CES 2015 in January.

Thank you MyDrivers for providing us with this information.