It looks like some spy photos of ATI's upcoming R600 DX10-class GPU have hit the web. Zol.com has some photos posted of a chip that is allegedly an R600. According to the site the chip is comprised of over 500 million transistors and it's manufactured on TSMC's 80nm half-node. If this information is correct, that would make the R600 about 180 million transistors "smaller" than the G80 and about 116 million transistors "bigger" then R580. This coupled with the news that the chip is built at 80nm, means the R600 should be cheaper to produce than the G80. And it also means that the die is a bit larger than R580's, despite being manufactured on the more advanced process. No word yet on performance or actual specifications, however. Another interesting thing to note is that the GPU die is rotated 45 degrees in the packaging. Supposedly, this is to shorten traces and facilitate routing to video memory.
Marco Chiappetta
Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com
