AMD’s Next Generation GPUs Are Actually Codenamed ‘Caribbean Islands’ – Coming Summer of 2015

AMD’s Next Generation GPUs Are Actually Codenamed ‘Caribbean Islands’ – Coming Summer of 2015

There has been a very interesting correction posted at Fudzilla.com about AMD’s upcoming Next Gen GPUs. Basically, the Fiji XT GPU (or whatever it might eventually be called) is not codenamed Pirate Islands, rather Caribbean Islands. Although this doesn’t actually change anything at this point, it still makes a noteworthy development in the leak scene. Also they have given us a concrete range and an approximate time frame.

AMD’s Caribbean Island is the codename for the next generation of Radeons apparently

While the source is pretty damn confident that Caribbean Islands is the name, we have received confirmation (Zauba shipping data) that AMD’s flagship GPU is currently called Fiji XT. Whether that will change, I am not really sure, but like Faud said, they have been a rather reliable source of leaks like this in the past. In any case a name change has zero effect on anything. There is no hint so far which process this lineup will use but because it is coming so late, it is very possible that the node is 20nm planar or 16nm FinFET. We already know that TSMC will be ramping up to volume in mid 2015, so GPUs so soon after seems a bit unlikely although not impossible. 20nm planar is a much better choice and would also explain AMD’s absence form the 16nm FinFET partners list. After the recent conference by AMD there is even the possibility that Global Foundries will be producing the cores this time.

This new architecture will be codenamed after an Island in the Caribbean Sea and will succeed the Hawaii GCN architecture. As the source notes, certain codenames from the Caribbean have already been used: The Northern Islands architecture, which was launched in 2011 used Turks and Caicos as codenames for the Radeon HD 6570 and Radeon HD 6450 respectively. Then, Cayman XT was used for the Radeon HD 6970 and Antilles XT for the flagship Radeon HD 6990. The leak mentions that the new GPUs from AMD will be coming in the summer of 2015 and they have also guessed a time frame of July to August. The launch might take place in the Caribbean if AMD follows its own precedent of the Hawaii launch.