First pictures of AMD's R600 GPU surface

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 27th November 2006
Comments (10) Stumble
R600 is rotated by 45 degrees on its packaging - we believe this is so that it can utilise a 512-bit memory interface.

R600 is rotated by 45 degrees on its packaging - we believe this is so that it can utilise a 512-bit memory interface.

Pictures of what is believed to be AMD's next-generation R600 graphics processor have shown up on Taiwanese forum PCDVD.

R600 is the first GPU that ATI will release under AMD's cloak, and will be the company's first DirectX 10 compliant graphics processor. However, specific details relating to the GPU's capabilities are scarce at the moment.

The chip is rumoured to be manufactured on TSMC's 80 nanometre process and according to PCDVD Forums, the chip's surface area is just under 430mm² - that's considerably larger than the company's current high end R580 GPU.

Interestingly, the silicon in the leaked pictures has been rotated by 45 degrees. We believe that this has been done in order to incorporate a physical 512-bit memory interface with realistic trace lengths. NVIDIA's first 256-bit dies (NV35 onwards) were rotated by 45 degrees on the chip packaging, so it could be a case of history repeating itself again.

NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTX video card uses a 384-bit memory interface, while the GeForce 8800 GTS uses a 320-bit memory interface. However, the orientation of the G80 die on its packaging is not clear at this time, because it's hidden under a rather large heat spreader. I'm not prepared to use one of bit-tech's GeForce 8800's as a guinea pig just yet...

AMD is rumoured to unveil its next-generation graphics processor on the 20th January 2007. This first tidbit makes R600 sound like an interesting beast - we'll bring you more details as and when we get them. For now though, we'll leave you with a couple of pictures to whet the appetite:

Quote DougEdey 27th November 2006, 10:43
At least its a bigger Bus, 512 is much more of a nice number.
Quote Iago 27th November 2006, 11:45
Bah! ;)

Doesn't even qualify for "Geek P0rn". I expected sexy PCB's, hot coolers (no pun intended) with Ruby stickers, triple of quadruple power imputs...that kind of things.
Quote DougEdey 27th November 2006, 11:48
Quote:
Originally Posted by Iago
Bah! ;)

Doesn't even qualify for "Geek P0rn". I expected sexy PCB's, hot coolers (no pun intended) with Ruby stickers, triple of quadruple power imputs...that kind of things.

Thats just "Hot" not "H4wt"
Quote DXR_13KE 27th November 2006, 17:04
cant wait until this gets out and the bit crew sacrifices a 8800 core so we can see its guts :D
Quote Mother-Goose 27th November 2006, 17:08
YAY, are they making sounds as to when this beasty will be out? (ie, Q1 or Q2?)
Quote Ramble 27th November 2006, 19:39
I reckon Q1, if we already have engineering samples been given to magazines then it can't be too far off.
Quote Cleric_silencer 27th November 2006, 20:52
looks cool, hope its the shiznit and mops up everything.
Quote M4RTIN 27th November 2006, 20:54
im really interested to see how its cooler branding is like.. im guessing its gonna be a green pcb and some kind of green cooler
Quote mattthegamer463 27th November 2006, 21:04
So when they refer to AMD and graphics at the same time, is that ATi talking? When I saw the title I was like "WTF AMD IS MAKING GPUS?!?!?11" and then I remembered about that bloody merger.
Quote speedfreek 27th November 2006, 21:31
If we get lucky it wont draw 300+ watts under light load too. :D

I can dream.
Log in

You are not logged in, please login with your forum account below. If you don't already have an account please register to start contributing.





Stats: 0.116 seconds