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The board power is rated at 130W, the actual TDP will be a little lower as we'll demonstrate later on. The Radeon HD 7850 is packed with 1024 shader processors harbored in Compute Unit segments (16 of them).The Radeon HD 7800 Pitcairn graphics core has a good 2.8 Billion transistors, the internal architecture has changed compared to the previous generation products, we'll talk a little deeper about that in a minute, but as a result: AMD now bakes GPUs on the all new 28nm node, in very simple wording that means they can put more transistors on a smaller processor die area, typically resulting in less power consumption as well. DDM audio is now fully supported (you hear audio on the actual monitor it's played on), a new 5x1 landscape mode is introduced, and you may now create custom multi-monitor resolutions. With the launch of the Radeon HD 7000 series Eyefinity has been updated to version 2.0. We'll address all these features separately of course. The GPU architecture was overhauled, AMD moved towards a 28nm process technology, the new cards are all PCIe gen 3 compatible and there have been significant changes on power consumption. It is important to understand that there are significant changes in this family of GPUs. We shall name that Radeon HD 7990 for now. That said, of course a dual-GPU based Tahiti graphics card is still pending launch. We do expect to see some respins and slightly different SKUs over time, but basically this is the entire lineup. The entire segment from top to bottom is now released in Q1 2012, the 28nm stack has been filled. High-end level = Tahiti = Radeon HD 7900 series.Mainstream level = Pitcairn = Radeon HD 7800 series.Entry level = Cape Verde = Radeon HD 7700 series.Finally there's "Tahiti" which is the codename for the GPU used in the most high-end products. Next in line is "Pitcairn" which is the codename of AMDs the mainstream products and thus the series 7800 tested today.
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When you notice "Cape Verde" that's the entry level Radeon HD 7700. It's simple really, in the market we have entry level, mainstream and high-end products. You've been hearing several codenames flying around and that can be a little confusing as we always do, let's explain that first.