We have already heard that Radeon HD 7000 series GPUs might slip to 2012, and now we got some aditional info. Apparently, AMD has delayed, pushed back, or whatever is it called today, the upcoming Radeon HD 7000 series, and currently it is scheduled to launch in early Q1 2012.

According to what we know so far, the announcement and probably some launch event might happen in Q4 2011, but the card will ship in volume sometime in Q1 2012. Of course, as always, AMD will first launch the high-end segment, probably named as the Radeon HD 7900 series and these will be based on Tahiti GPU. Price-wise we are talking about somewhere close to Radeon HD 6990, and thus, we guess that the new HD 7900 series might end up somewhere around the HD 6990, in terms of performance at least.

There has been some talk regarding the mainstream and entry-level parts but there are many codenames circling around and nothing is sure, at least for now. The only sure thing is the New Zealand codename, a high-end dual-GPU card with two Tahiti GPUs. Of course, the price and name of the card can be easily changed, even on the launch day, so nothing is carved in stone, but it is now pretty sure that these cards will not be available in 2011.

Despite the delay, or original plan set by AMD, they will still have a good three months of advantage over Nvidia, as rumors are indicating that Kepler won't be around before late Q1.