So if I’m reading the rumors correctly, it looks like we have a RX 580 that’s being built on a 12nm process (GF or TSMC still unknown for sure). It appears (but is unconfirmed) that the memory clocks remains unchanged. The name is (probably) the RX 590. If true I would expect it to be released in the next month or two so as to be available for the Christmas buying season.
The name would make sense. I get the feeling that they are only coming out with this one card so it would be lame to call it the RX 680 as that would imply there should be a 670, 660, etc.. Of course AMD can be pretty damn lame (RX 570 rebadged as a RX 580 2080SP) so anything is possible.
Honestly I believe these rumors because AMD needs to do something. Nvidia just released their high end products and AMD won’t have anything to respond with until sometime next year. Nvidia will soon release their midrange cards kicking AMD further to the curb. AMD needs something to keep them in the public eye. They pulled that RX 560X BS (regular RX 560 just with newest drivers) just to give the OEM’s something new to put on their spec sheet. Releasing an updated RX 590 card would actually give them something real. It would keep people talking about their GPU’s, even if it’s just to say how lame it is. Sometimes bad news is still good news as it reminds people you still exist.
Concerning the fab, I doubt the TSMC rumor. Since GF 12nm is most likely an improvement on the current 14/16nm process, the work to migrate it would not be unreasonably large. The amount of work required to move to a new TSMC process would be much larger. Having said that however, AMD is going to have to do it anyway. They are moving everything to TSMC anyway and migrating RX 580 to TSMC may be useful since they have to learn new processes anyway. I’m no expert on processes so I’m just guessing here.