AMD reveals upcoming ATI Southern Islands GPU codenames in ATI Catalyst 10.8 drivers

AMD released its ATI Catalyst 10.8 drivers recently, and now, some codenames of upcoming GPUs have been found listed in them. What's certainly perplexing is that even though everyone knows the Southern Islands GPUs are the next slated release, these codenames have NI, orNorthern Islands, attached to them, even on some obviously Southern Islands of the West Indies, such as Antilles, Barts, Caicos, Cayman, Seymour, and Turks. Whistler and Blackcomb are the only two actual Northern Islands of the Caribbean on the list .The consensus so far is that the 35 new cards listed in the atiicdxx.da_ file are the codenames of what's coming up next, i.e., 40nm, and we can expect the temporarily shelved 32nm Northern Island GPUs much later.

While a lot of correlation with the naming schemes of the current generation of ATI GPUs has revealed some interesting facts about the revealed graphic cards, no specifications are known yet. Ten Cayman cards are thought to be part of ATI's professional FirePro cards, with their GL prefix. Of the remaining, XT would be the top end of the series (like the HD 5870), PRO the mid-end (like the HD 5850), and LE the low end (like the HD 5830). LP is thought to stand for low power, or, it could simply be a code refresh to the LE tag. Finally, the Gemini prefix is thought to indicate dual GPUs. The GPUs are probably not lmited to just desktop, workstation and notebook graphics, but some may refer to embedded and FireStream products as well. Check out the entire list below:

223,CAYMAN GL XT (6700),NI CAYMAN

224,CAYMAN GL XT (6701),NI CAYMAN

225,CAYMAN GL XT (6702),NI CAYMAN

226,CAYMAN GL XT (6703),NI CAYMAN

227,CAYMAN GL PRO (6704),NI CAYMAN

228,CAYMAN GL PRO (6705),NI CAYMAN

229,CAYMAN GL (6706),NI CAYMAN

230,CAYMAN GL LE (6707),NI CAYMAN

231,CAYMAN GL (6708),NI CAYMAN

232,CAYMAN GL (6709),NI CAYMAN

233,CAYMAN XT (6718),NI CAYMAN

234,CAYMAN PRO (6719),NI CAYMAN

235,ANTILLES PRO (671C),NI CAYMAN

236,ANTILLES XT (671D),NI CAYMAN

237,BLACKCOMB XT/PRO (6720),NI BLACKCOMB

238,BLACKCOMB LP (6721),NI BLACKCOMB

239,BLACKCOMB XT/PRO Gemini (6724),NI BLACKCOMB

240,BLACKCOMB LP Gemini (6725),NI BLACKCOMB

241,BARTS GL XT (6728),NI BARTS

242,BARTS GL PRO (6729),NI BARTS

243,BARTS XT (6738),NI BARTS

244,BARTS PRO (6739),NI BARTS

245,WHISTLER XT (6740),NI WHISTLER

246,WHISTLER PRO/LP (6741),NI WHISTLER

247,WHISTLER XT/PRO Gemini (6744),NI WHISTLER

248,WHISTLER LP Gemini (6745),NI WHISTLER

249,ONEGA (6750),NI TURKS

250,TURKS XT (6758),NI TURKS

251,TURKS PRO (6759),NI TURKS

252,SEYMOUR XT/PRO (6760),NI SEYMOUR

253,SEYMOUR LP (6761),NI SEYMOUR

254,SEYMOUR XT/PRO Gemini (6764),NI SEYMOUR

255,SEYMOUR LP Gemini (6765),NI SEYMOUR

256,CAICOS GL PRO (6768),NI CAICOS

257,CASPIAN PRO (6770),NI CAICOS

258,CAICOS PRO (6779),NI CAICOS

A Turkish website called Donanimhaber has announced its expected release for the schedule for some of the above named ATI Radeon HD 6000 series, which starts of with Radeon HD 6700 series, codenamed Barts, releasing this October. November should be the ATI Radeon HD 6800 series, codenamed Cayman. The flagship chip, replacing the HD 5970, is expected to be the Antilles, a dual-GPU Cayman 6870 (without the lowered clock speeds of the HD 5970), branded as the HD 6970, which is supposedly due out in December. A 6950 card, the Antilles PRO, is also expected at some point.

Turks and Caicos are thought to be the HD 6600 and 6500 cards, and will apparently release in Q1 2011.