Graphics Core Next-family

Southern Islands

Main article: Radeon HD 7000 Series

"Southern Islands" was the first series to feature the new compute microarchitecture known as "Graphics Core Next"(GCN). GCN 1.0 was used among the higher end cards, while the VLIW5 architecture utilized in the previous generation was used in the lower end, OEM products. However, the Radeon HD 7790 uses GCN 1.1, and was the first product in the series to be released by AMD on January 9, 2012.

Sea Islands

Main article: Radeon HD 8000 Series

The "Sea Islands" were OEM rebadges of the 7000 series, with only three products, code named Oland, available for general retail. The series, just like the "Southern Islands", used a mixture of VLIW5 models and GCN models for its desktop products.

Volcanic Islands

Main article: AMD Radeon Rx 200 Series

"Volcanic Islands" GPUs were introduced with the AMD Radeon Rx 200 Series, and were first released in late 2013.^[6] The Radeon Rx 200 line is mainly based on AMD's GCN architecture, with the lower end, OEM cards still using VLIW5. The majority of desktop products use GCN 1.0, while the R9 290x/290 & R7 260X/260 use GCN 1.1, and with only the R9 285 using the new GCN 1.2.^[7]

Caribbean Islands

Main article: AMD Radeon Rx 300 Series

GPUs codenamed "Caribbean Islands"^[8] were introduced with the AMD Radeon Rx 300 Series, released in 2015. This series was the first to solely use GCN based models, ranging from GCN 1st to GCN 3rd Gen.

Arctic Islands

Main article: AMD Radeon Rx 400 Series

GPUs codenamed "Arctic Islands" are being introduced as the Radeon Rx 400 Series, and is set to be released in June 2016 with the announcement of the RX 480.^[9] The new cards will be the first to use the new Polaris architecture which implements GCN 4th Gen on the 14 nm fab process.