CES 2012: AMD Also Demos High-End HD 7000M GPU Based on Pitcairn Core

Outside of the Trinity APU demo that we talked about earlier today, AMD has also brought a working sample of a high-end Radeon HD 7000M-series notebook GPU based on the company’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture at this year’s CES fair.

The graphics card that was showcased running both in single, and as part of a dual-GPU CrossFireX setup, was actually based on the company’s Pitcairn GPU according to VR-Zone.

Built using TSMC’s 28nm fabrication process, the Pitcairn core is a true Graphics Core Next (GCN) design and will also be used by the Sunnyvale-based company as the base for its desktop Radeon HD 7800 parts.

In the notebook space however, this graphics core is highly likely to appear as the Radeon HD 7900M which is a general occurrence in the mobile GPU market.

Nvidia does this too with the GTX 580M which packs the same core as the desktop GTX 560 Ti, but features lower operating clocks in order to decrease its TDP and make it better suited for its mobile role.

In AMD’s case, the GPU and memory frequencies of the card are also expected to be lower, but the company hasn’t disclosed anything regarding the specs of the notebook graphics card demoed.

Previous leaks have however revealed that the Pitcairn GPU will be available in two versions, dubbed Pitcairn XT and Pitcairn Pro, the former coming with 1408 stream processors and 88 texture units while the latter will be limited at 1280 shaders and 80 texture units.

The ROP count will be set at 34 units for both of these solutions while the available 256-bit wide memory bus can connect to either 1GB of 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

In the desktop products, the GPU clock speed will be set at 900MHz while the memory works at up to 1.25GHz (5GHz effective).

Sadly, AMD hasn’t said anything about the availability of these graphics cards, so right now we don’t know when these are expected to make their way inside notebooks.

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