AMD Introduces the Radeon HD 7970 Graphics Card, The 28 nm Era Begins

Bring ye a fresh set of bragging rights because today AMD has (paper) launched the first graphics card powered by a 28 nm GPU, the Radeon HD 7970. Equipped with one Tahiti chip, this new, high-end offering is the first to make use of the GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture which is claimed to deliver an improvement 'of over 150% in performance/sq mm over the prior generation.'

The Radeon HD 7970 also adopts the PCI Express 3.0 standard (which ensures a large, healthy bandwidth), and implements the PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power technologies that allow for 'higher performance levels while maximizing power efficiencies'.

"True to the maxim, 'never settle,' AMD is once again aggressively advancing the state of the graphics industry - this time with the arrival of the world's fastest single-GPU graphics card, the AMD Radeon HD 7970," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, GPU Division, AMD. "This graphics card represents a revolution in the graphics industry. To put it bluntly, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 changes everything!"

Spec wise, the HD 7970 offers 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, a core clock of 925 MHz, a 384-bit memory interface, and 3 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5500 MHz. AMD's card also packs a dual-slot cooler which uses vapor chamber technology, has CrossFireX support, and includes four display outputs (Eyefinity is obviously present) - one dual-link DVI, one HDMI 1.4a and two mini DisplayPort 1.2.

The Radeon HD 7970 has a recommended price tag of $549 and is expected to become available as of January 9, 2012. For the full scoop on the very first 28nm card be sure to check out the review found here.