AMD Radeon HD 6900 (AMD Cayman) series graphics cards

It is more that a year since AMD had released its first DirectX 11 series graphics cards of high performance based on Cypress architecture. Due to some troubles faced by its main competitor in the graphics segment, AMD HD 5850 and HD 5870 were the fastest solution for quite a long time there. However, the announcement of NVIDIA Fermi architecture coupled with the growth in product popularity of the latter made AMD to think about next generation graphic cards.

Both consumers and AMD wanted to see new graphics processors made using 28nm processor technology. However, it is not a secret that TSMC is responsible for production of GPUs for AMD. In turn, TSMC had troubles with the start of a new advanced production line which caused delays in release of 28nm chips in 2010. This has resulted in AMD changing its plans about the 2nd gen. DX11 graphic card manufacturing. In quite short time, AMD managed to design Barts graphics processor, which debuted on 22nd of October 2010. AMD Radeon HD 6850 and HD 6870 graphic cards had enter its market segment quite successfully while leaving some room for new high-end solutions, which were released shortly after.

At first, its was expected to present AMD Cayman based cards in November 2010, however, at the eleventh hour, cards’ introduction was pushed till 50th week 2010. Now, when you read these words, it is safe to say — they have been officially announced.

AMD Cayman graphics are presented with two models — Radeon HD 6950 and Radeon HD 6970: