If we believe the rumors early October, this year could be the debut of graphics solutions AMD generation Volcanic Islands, which will take the names of Radeon HD 9xxx.
According to associate the sample Radeon HD 9970 from Sapphire has a 12-layer PCB. This indicates, in particular, high packing density and complexity of the device, while the Radeon HD 7970 also were not easy: the standard version of this adapter uses a 10-layer PCB.
It also means that Sapphire engineers completed the basic design work and preparing for the transfer of video cards in mass production in the next few weeks. So the rumors about the busy schedule announced in October may be true.