Some of the first details and specifications of "Oland" have arrived, the Radeon HD 8800 series part of AMD's upcoming Sea Islands graphics card lineup. Rumored to be planned for January 2013, the 28nm Oland GPU reportedly packs 3.4 billion transistors in a 270mm² die. That's 21 percent more transistors than Pitcairn (Radeon HD 7800 series) in a package that's 27 percent larger.
According to the leaked specifications, the Radeon HD 8870 may have a base clockspeed of 1050MHz and a boost clockspeed of 1100MHz. Single-precision computing performance is said to be 3.94 teraflops, a massive 75 percent increase over the Radeon HD 7870, while double-precision computing power is up 60 percent to 246 gigaflops.
The Radeon HD 8850 on the other hand promises a 925MHz core, 975MHz boost, 2.99 teraflops single-precision computing power and 187.2 gigaflops double-precision. Both cards have a 256-bit memory bus and memory clockspeed is anticipated to be around 6000MHz.
Interestingly, the power consumption of the Radeon HD 8870 is said to be 9 percent lower than the Radeon HD 7870's, while the TDP of the Radeon HD 8850 remains the same as its predecessor.
As always you need to take these rumors with a grain of salt because they can be based on outdated or even fake information, but especially the rumored pricing seems hard to believe. The report claims the Radeon HD 8870 may launch for $279, and the Radeon HD 8850 for as little as $199. Such prices would be very good for gamers but they're hard to believe.
