Codename(s) | Northern Islands Caicos Turks Barts Cayman Antilles |
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Created in year | 2010 |
Entry-level cards | 6450, 6570, 6670 |
Mid-range cards | 6750, 6770, 6790, 6850, 6870 |
High-end cards | 6950, 6970 |
Enthusiast cards | 6990 |
Direct3D support | Direct3D 11 Shader Model 5.0 |
OpenCL support | 1.1 |
OpenGL support | 4.2 |
Predecessor | Evergreen family |
Successor | Southern Islands family |
The Northern Islands series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for its Radeon line, based on the 40 nm process.
Starting with this family, the former ATI brand was officially discontinued in favor of making a correlation between the graphics products and the AMD branding for computing platforms (the CPUs and chipsets). Therefore, the AMD brand was used as the replacement. The logo for graphics products and technologies also received a minor makeover (using design elements of the 2010 AMD VISION logo).
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The original design was for 32 nm, but TSMC cancelled its 32 nm process in favor of 28 nm development. AMD was forced to adapt its designs as second generation 40 nm products. Even before canceling 32 nm process, TSMC priced their 32 nm process higher than 40 nm. AMD calculated that for mid-range chips, the new VLIW4 architecture (at 32 nm), would not be as cost effective as an updated VLIW5 on 40 nm.
Due to a major delay caused by the 32 nm cancellation, the top parts, Cayman and Antilles (dual Cayman), were delayed causing the mid-range part (Barts) of the series, as AMD moved the smaller chips (Barts, Turks, and Caicos) to 40 nm early, to be launched first.[1] Also, AMD added stereoscopic 3D support to this Radeon lineup along with HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2.
Codenamed Caicos, this entry-level GPU was released along with Turks on February 7, 2011. The sole Caicos product is the Radeon HD 6450, meant to replace the HD 5450. Compared to the 5450, it has double the stream processors, GDDR5 support, along with new Northern Island technologies.
Codenamed Turks, these entry-level GPUs were released on February 7, 2011. The Turks family includes Turks PRO and Turks XT which are marketed as HD 6570 and HD 6670 respectively. They were originally released to OEMs only, but later released to retail.
The Radeon HD 6570 and 6670 are minor upgrades of their Evergreen counterparts, the HD 5570 and 5670. Turks GPUs contain 80 more stream processors and 4 more texture units. They have also been upgraded to support the new technologies found in the Northern Islands GPUs such as HDMI 1.4a, UVD3, and stereoscopic 3D.
Codenamed Barts LE, the Radeon HD 6790 was released on April 5, 2011. There is one retail product available, the Radeon HD 6790. Barts uses shaders of the same 5-way VLIW architecture as HD 5000 series.
AMD has confirmed that the HD 6700 cards use the Juniper XT and Juniper Pro cores (same cores as the HD 5700 series). Thus 6770 and 6750 cards are essentially rebranded 5770 and 5750 respectively, with label being the main difference
Codenamed Barts, the Radeon HD 6800 series was released on October 22, 2010. Products include Radeon HD 6850 and Radeon HD 6870. Barts uses shaders of the same 5-way VLIW architecture as HD 5000 series.[2]
This family includes three different high-end products.
Codenamed Cayman, the Radeon HD 6900 series was expected to be released on November 12, 2010. These release dates were pushed further back and Cayman was released on December 15, 2010. Products include Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 6970. Cayman is based on new 4-way VLIW architecture, which was chosen over AMD's older VLIW5 in order to reduce complexity in the design of AMD's stream processors. Studies showed that few applications fully leveraged the extra stage in a VLIW5 SP. Reducing the stream processors to VLIW4 allows AMD to save on transistors for each individual SP and add more overall in the future.[4]
Northern Islands (HD 6xxx) series overview
Model | Year | Code name | Transistors (Million) | Die Size (mm2) | Bus interface | Memory (MiB) | Clock rate | Config core1 | Fillrate | Memory | GFLOPS | TDP3 (W) | Double-precision FP | Features / Notes | Release Price (USD) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Core (MHz) | Memory (MHz) | Pixel (GP/s) | Texture (GT/s) | Bandwidth (GB/s) | Bus type2 | Bus width (bit) | Idle | Max. | ||||||||||||
Radeon HD 6450[7] | Feb 7, 2011 (OEM) Apr 7, 2011 (retail) |
Caicos | 370 | 67 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | 512 1024 |
625-750 | 533-800 800-900 |
160:8:4 | 2.5-3 | 5-6 | 8.5-12.8 25.6-28.8 |
DDR3 GDDR5 | 64 | 200-240 | 9 | 18 27 |
No | $55 (GDDR5) | |
Radeon HD 6570[8] | Feb 7, 2011 (OEM) Apr 19, 2011 (retail) |
Turks | 716 | 118 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | 512 1024 2048 |
650 | 900 1000 |
480:24:8 | 5.2 | 15.6 | 28.8 64 |
DDR3 GDDR5 |
128 | 624 | 10 11 |
44 60 |
No | $79 (GDDR5) | |
Radeon HD 6670[9] | 512 1024 |
800 | 1000 | 6.4 | 19.2 | 64 | GDDR5 | 768 | 12 | 66 | $99 | |||||||||
Radeon HD 6750[10] | Jan 21, 2011 (OEM) Apr 28, 2011 (retail) |
Juniper PRO | 1040 | 170 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | 512 1024 |
700 | 1150 | 720:36:16 | 11.2 | 25.2 | 73.6 | GDDR5 | 128 | 1008 | 16 | 86 | No | ||
Radeon HD 6770[11] | Juniper XT | 850 | 1200 | 800:40:16 | 13.6 | 34 | 76.8 | 1360 | 18 | 108 | ||||||||||
Radeon HD 6790 | Apr 4, 2011 | Barts LE | 1700 | 255 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | 1024 | 840 | 1050 | 800:40:16 | 13.4 | 33.6 | 134.4 | GDDR5 | 256 | 1344 | 19 | 150 | No | HD3D UVD3 HDMI 1.4a | $149 |
Radeon HD 6850[12] | Oct 22, 2010 | Barts Pro | 775 | 1000 | 960:48:32 | 24.8 | 37.2 | 128 | 1488 | 127[13] | HD3D UVD3 HDMI 1.4a DP 1.2[N 1][14] | $179 | ||||||||
Radeon HD 6870[15] | Barts XT | 900 | 1050 | 1120:56:32 | 28.8 | 50.4 | 134.4 | 2016 | 151[13] | $239 | ||||||||||
Radeon HD 6950[16] | Dec 15, 2010 | Cayman Pro | 2640[17] | 389[17] | PCIe 2.1 x16 | 1024 2048 | 800 | 1250 | 1408:88:32 | 25.6 | 70.4 | 160 | GDDR5 | 256 | 2253 | 20[18] | 200[18] | 563 | HD3D UVD3 HDMI 1.4a DP 1.2 Dual BIOS option |
$259 $299 |
Radeon HD 6970[19] | Cayman XT | 2048 | 880 | 1375 | 1536:96:32 | 28.2 | 84.5 | 176 | 2703 | 250[18] | 675 | $369 | ||||||||
Radeon HD 6990 | Mar 8, 2011[20] | Antilles | 2640 ×2 | 389 ×2 | PCIe 2.1 x16 | 2048 ×2 | 830 | 1250 | 1536:96:32 ×2 | 2× 26.5 | 2× 79.6 | 2× 160 | GDDR5 | 2× 256 | 5099 | 37 | 375 | 1276.88 | HD3D UVD3 HDMI 1.4a DP 1.2 Dual BIOS option |
$699 |
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