First pictures of AMD's R600 GPU surface

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 27th November 2006

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: