A surprise from AMDs beta drivers has arrived today. No, not some incredible performance jump that causes it to smash the 680...or is it? The new beta drivers make reference to 16 previously unseen device IDs and their codenames. These new device IDs could (read: likely) belong to the upcoming HD 8000 series GPUs.

The codenames, 4x "Venus", 3x "Oland" and finally 9x "Mars", should flesh out the HD 8000 series nicely. The Venus will most likely be the top end card due to the LE, Pro, XT and XTX suffixes. Oland will probably end up being the 8800 series and Mars will most likely flesh out the lower end and mainstream market.

The cards will likely launch near the end of 2012 or very early 2013, if previous AMD launches are anything to go by. There have been zero rumors about performance, although with this new finding, I'm sure they will start flowing. In case you're curious, the device IDs are listed below:

• AMD1305.1 = "KAVERI1 DESKTOP (1305)"
• AMD1304.1 = "KAVERI1 MOBILE (1304)"
• AMD1307.1 = "KAVERI2 DESKTOP (1307)"
• AMD1306.1 = "KAVERI2 MOBILE (1306)"
• AMD9833.1 = "KB 12W 2C (9833)"
• AMD9834.1 = "2C 5W KB (9834)"
• AMD9831.1 = "KB 4C 17W (9831)"
• AMD9832.1 = "KB 17W 4C (N-1) (9832)"
• AMD9830.1 = "KB 4C 25W (9830)"
• AMD6600.1 = "MARS (6600)"
• AMD6601.1 = "MARS (6601)"
• AMD6602.1 = "MARS (6602)"
• AMD6602.1 = "MARS (6603)"
• AMD6602.1 = "MARS (6606)"
• AMD6602.1 = "MARS (6607)"
• AMD6600.1 = "MARS (6620)"
• AMD6601.1 = "MARS (6621)"
• AMD6602.1 = "MARS (6623)"
• AMD6610.1 = "OLAND (6610)"
• AMD6611.1 = "OLAND (6611)"
• AMD6631.1 = "OLAND (6631)"
• AMD682B.1 = "VENUS LE"
• AMD6823.4 = "VENUS PRO"
• AMD6821.1 = "VENUS XT"
• AMD6820.2 = "VENUS XTX"