If you are wondering what AMD is prepping for its new R700 graphic cards, here's a piece of information you might find interesting. Qimonda, the memory manufacturer, has announced that it started shipping GDDR5 memory to AMD. The memory is supposed to be for the company's next generation graphic processors, meaning that the release of the new Radeon graphic cards is just around the corner.

Qimonda also declared that it has already started mass producing and shipping GDDR5 512Mbit memory modules to AMD. These chips are rated at 4.0Gbps per pin, which should give you an insight on their level of performance. Robert Feurle, Vice President Business Unit Specialty DRAM of Qimonda declared in a press release issued today that "We are very proud to supply AMD with GDDR5 volume shipments only six months after first product samples have been delivered." He also added, "This is a further milestone in our successful GDDR5 roadmap and underlines our predominant position as innovator and leader in the graphics DRAM market."

The RV770 chip is said to be the first to support the GDDR5 memory, but two graphic cards featuring this chip will be launched with GDDR5 support. The second series of RV770-based graphic cards, known as RV770PRO internally, will only use GDDR3 memory. Both RV770 and RV770PRO are expected to feature 480 stream processors, much like on the current RV670 chips. The two products are also expected to support 256-bit memory interface.

Currently, AMD has lost its leadership for both high performance graphics and central processing units but the company can still provide a good price/quality ratio. The new cards appear to be using the 3870 X2 platform and improve on that, but the way AMD is going to do this is not certain yet. There's no official release date or price for the new AMD graphic cards.