AMD's HD 7000 series entry, mainstream GPUs to be rebadged 6000 series

We know for a fact that AMD will be launching the HD 7000 series in the reverse order, starting with the entry-level, mainstream desktop and notebook graphics card. Chiphell has managed to get their hands on a slide, which further cements that fact, but worryingly, these ‘new’ cards will just be a rebadged 6000 series card. This is nothing new in the GPU industry, as both Nvidia and AMD have been doing this for years, remember how Nvidia milked the G92 core? What this means is you don’t have to wait for December to pick a new card for your rig or HTPC as clearly, you won’t be getting any radically new features, just a speed bump at best.

Caught in the act

The slide only mentions the entry-level GPUs like HD 7350, HD 7450 and HD 7670, all of which are based on the same 6000 series cores like Cedar, Caicos and Turks Pro/XT. These cards are aimed at their Llano APUs, as they are compatible with the Asymmetric CrossFire feature present in them. There’s no confirmation about any of the mainstream or mid-range GPUs though, although I wouldn’t be surprised if AMD sneaks in a rebadged ‘Barts’ GPU or even a heavily stripped down ‘Cayman’ GPU. The true next-generation HD 7000 GPU core is ‘Tahiti’, which will be out next year and possibly along with Nvidia’s ‘Kepler’.