The Radeon HD 8000 series is a family of computer

GPUs A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...

developed by

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

. AMD was initially rumored 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 7000 series may refer to: Japanese trains * Chichibu Railway 7000 series electric multiple unit (EMU) * Echizen Railway 7000 series EMU * Hankyu 7000 series EMU * Hokushin Kyuko Electric Railway 7000 series EMU operating for the Kobe Municipal S ...

(although Bonaire is a GCN 2.0 based chip, thus being of newer development).

Architecture

The Radeon HD 7000 series was launched in 2011 and it marked AMD's shift from VLIW ( TeraScale) to RISC/SIMD architecture (

Graphics Core Next Graphics Core Next (GCN) is the codename for a series of microarchitectures and an instruction set architecture that were developed by AMD for its GPUs as the successor to its TeraScale microarchitecture. The first product featuring GCN was lau ...

). The highend-mainstream cards were equipped with GCN-based chips while some of the mid-low end ones were just rebranded TeraScale-based cards. All of the GCN-based chips were made using the 28 nm process, becoming the first chips ever to be based on that technology. The GCN-based chips for desktop cards were codenamed as Southern Islands, while the mobile ones (again, only the GCN-based and not the rebranded ones) were codenamed as Solar System.

Multi-monitor support

The

AMD Eyefinity AMD Eyefinity is a brand name for AMD video card products that support multi-monitor setups by integrating multiple (up to six) display controllers on one GPU. AMD Eyefinity was introduced with the Radeon HD 5000 Series "Evergreen" in September 2 ...

-branded on-

die Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

display controller A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing ...

s were introduced in September 2009 alongside the

Radeon HD 5000 Series The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name. It was employed in Radeon HD 5000 graphics card series and competed directly with Nvidia's GeForce 400 Series. Release T ...

and have been present on all chips since then.

Video acceleration

Both

Unified Video Decoder Unified Video Decoder (UVD, previously called Universal Video Decoder) is the name given to AMD's dedicated video decoding ASIC. There are multiple versions implementing a multitude of video codecs, such as H.264 and VC-1. UVD was introduced with ...

(UVD) and

Video Coding Engine Video Code Engine (VCE, was earlier referred to as Video Coding Engine, Video Compression Engine or Video Codec Engine in official AMD documentation) is AMD's video encoding application-specific integrated circuit implementing the video codec H. ...

(VCE) are present on all GCN-based chips (starting with the GCN 1.0 HD 7000 series). Both are fully supported by

AMD Catalyst AMD Radeon Software is a device driver and utility software package for AMD's graphics cards and APUs. Its graphical user interface is built with Electron and is compatible with 64-bit Windows and Linux distributions. Software bundle Func ...

and by the free and open-source graphics device driver#ATI/AMD.

OpenCL (API)

OpenCL accelerates many scientific Software Packages against CPU up to factor 10 or 100 and more. OpenCL 1.0 to 1.2 are supported for all Chips with TeraScale and GCN Architecture. OpenCL 2.0 is supported with GCN 2nd Gen. or 1.2 and higher) For OpenCL 2.1 and 2.2 only Driver Updates are necessary with OpenCL 2.0 conformant Cards.

Vulkan (API)

API Vulkan 1.0 is supported for all with GCN Architecture. Vulkan 1.1 (GCN 2nd Gen. or 1.2 and higher) will be supported with actual drivers in 2018 (here only HD 8770). On newer drivers Vulkan 1.1 on Windows and Linux is supported on all GCN-architecture based GPUs. Vulkan 1.2 is available with Adrenalin 20.1 and Linux Mesa 20.0 for GCN 2nd Gen. or higher.

Chipset table

Desktop models

(GCN) supports the Mantle API and Vulkan API * OpenGL 4.5 support for TeraScale 2 with AMD Crimson Beta (driver version 15.30 or higher) * OpenGL 4.5 and Vulkan 1.0 support for GCN 1.0 and higher with AMD Crimson 16.3 or higher. * Vulkan 1.1 support for GCN 1.0 and higher with AMD Adrenalin 18.3.3 or higher.

Mobile Models

Integrated Models

Radeon Feature Matrix

References

External links

techPowerUp! GPU Database
{{AMD graphics AMD graphics cards Computer-related introductions in 2013 GPGPU Graphics hardware Graphics processing units