We heard rumblings that AMD's next-generation GPUs will be released later this year, but exact details are still quite thin-on-the-ground. Even though the company hasn't confirmed the new cards, it may have revealed their codenames in the Catalyst drivers released yesterday.
Southern Islands
The folks at rage3D went through the driver-files with a fine-tooth comb and found references to some unannounced graphics-cards. Among the codenames are Cayman, Turks, Caicos, Barts, Seymour, Whistler and Blackcomb.
For those who aren't up on their geography, the first four probably refer to the Caribbean nations of the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos and St Barthélemy - St Barts in English - while Seymour could be Seymour Island off of the Antarctic Peninsula. Though Seymour Island is certainly southern, the other three are technically in the Northern Hemisphere.
Northern...Mountains?
Whistler and Blackcomb don't seem to fit with the Island-theme as both are mountains - and popular ski resorts - in the Canadian Rockies. There are also references to Onega, Caspian and Antilles as a part of Turks, Caicos and Cayman families, respectively. While the latter probably relates to the group of Caribbean islands of the same name, the first two are lakes in Eastern Europe and Russia.
AMD has also thrown in a few other words to keep things interesting. Alongside the usual XT and PRO suffixes are a good number of GL versions - including GL PRO and GL XT - as well as Gemini variants. What these mean is unclear, but they could point to mobile, dual-GPU or workstation components.
There obviously isn't a lot of information that we can gather from these codenames, but it does give weight to the rumours of an impending announcement. Feel free to contribute your own speculation as to their meaning in the HEXUS.community.
