AMD’s upcoming Tahiti from Southern Islands pictured

As the days pass by, we’re getting nearer and nearer to the release of the next generation of GPU, and I’m not talking about the cheap imitation of HD 7000 GPUs through rebrand, but the real deal.

It seems that a mysterious photo has made its way to the Beyond3D forums showing two next-gen AMD graphics card in CrossFire. This is certainly an enthusiast product from the upcoming Southern Islands family, most likely to be Tahiti TX, expected to be branded Radeon HD 7970.

At first glance we can estimate the card’s length to be approximately 10 inches long, which is about the same as the HD 6970. Through a closer observation we can see 12 memory chips, 11 of which are marked on the picture above, the 12th being at the edge of the PCIe connector (picture below shows all the memory chips). This suggests a 384-bit memory interface, giving the possibility that emerged recently a bit more truth, so to speak.

Another observation is the hunger of the beast, with 2×8-pin PCIe power connectors, which translate into up to 375W. The setup is powered by a 850W power supply which seems to be fed through a 20 phase VRM.

While the first set of AMD Radeon HD 7000 series 28nm GPUs are set to release in January 2012, it is rather unsure as to whether it will be the enthusiast Tahiti/ HD 7900, as pictured above, or the performance Pitcairn/HD 7800.

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