Harman Patil (Editor)

Radeon HD 8000 series

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Release date
  
2013

Mid-range
  
8750 8760 8770 8850

Architecture
  
GCN 1st gen

Codename
  
Southern Islands Sea Islands Solar System Richland Kabini

Fabrication process and transistors
  
1.040M (Oland) 28 nm 2.080M (Bonaire) 28 nm

Entry-level
  
8350 8450 8470 8490 8570 8670 8730

The HD 8000 series is a family of computer GPUs developed by AMD. AMD was initially rumoured to release the family in the second quarter of 2013, with the cards manufactured on a 28 nm process and making use of the improved Graphics Core Next architecture. However the 8000 series turned out to be an OEM rebadge of the 7000 series (although, Oland is of newer development).

Contents

Architecture

The Radeon HD 8000 series marked AMD's shift from VLIW (TeraScale) to RISC/SIMD architecture (Graphics Core Next). The newer, more powerful cards were equipped with GCN cores, the less powerful ones with older TeraScale2/3 cores, see table below. GCN desktop cards were code-named Southern Islands, while mobile ones were code-named Solar System.

Multi-monitor support

The AMD Eyefinity-branded on-die display controllers were introduced in September 2009 in the Radeon HD 5000 Series and have been present in all products since.

Video acceleration

Both Unified Video Decoder (UVD) and Video Coding Engine (VCE) are present on the dies of all products and supported by AMD Catalyst and by the free and open-source graphics device driver#ATI/AMD.

GCN-based models

  • Graphics Core Next (GCN) supports the Mantle API and Vulcan API
  • OpenGL 4.5 and Vulkan 1.0 Support for GCN 1.0 and higher with AMD Crimson 16.3 or higher,.

    • Solar System (HD 8xxxM) mobile series

  • All models of this mobile Series are based on GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture.
  • All HD 8xxxM are GCN-based and support DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.2 and OpenCL 1.2, with driver Update to Crimson 16.3 and higher: OpenGL 4.5, OpenCL 1.2, 2.0 and Vulkan 1.0
  • All models will now feature 256 kB or 512 kB L2 read/write cache

    • 1 Unified shaders : Texture mapping units : Render output units : Compute units
    2 The effective data transfer rate of GDDR5 is quadruple its nominal clock, instead of double as it is with other DDR memory.

    Richland (HD 8xxxD) series

    These refer to the graphics integrated into Richland desktop APUs, they are VLIW4 based (like some of Radeon HD 6000 Series).

    Richland (HD 8xxxG) series

    These refer to the graphics integrated into Richland mobile APUs, they are VLIW4 based.

    References

    Radeon HD 8000 series Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA