In the wake of global economic recession, standing still is not the way out of the woods. Thus, AMD GPG is getting ready to launch 40nm refreshes of their Radeon 4600 and 4800. We haven’t received confirmation about names of the products, but the naming should be Radeon 4700 and Radeon 4900 series, with 5800 series reserved for the DirectX 11 part. Of course, AMD might be inclined to change the name and advance to 5000 series immediately, but we’ll see. RV740 and RV790 should be considered as a trial run for TSMC’s 40nm process, currently “the most advanced manufacturing process” on Earth. Yes, it
Nvidia 55nm GT206 reviewed, dramatic reduction in power consumption
A while ago, I wrote a piece stating that Nvidia decided to launch 55nm GT206 as Quadros first. The reason for that is the number of problems that Nvidia had in die-shrink process, so the company had to roll-out GT206 in the same way as its old NV30 (Quadro FX 2000 shipped before GeForce FX5800) or as AMD likes to launch its CPUs – commercial parts (Opteron) are launched first, followed by consumer ones (Phenom, Athlon, Turnmeon). Thus, GT206 (G200 B Series – A series marked 65nm parts, B series denominates 55nm parts, G200 C series should mark the 40nm GPUs) debuted as Quadro
ATI and Nvidia cards for 2009 will be monsters
As the 2008 is drawing to a close, our thoughts are turning towards 2009 and what incredible hardware will come at our doorsteps. Upcoming year will bring a breeze of competitiveness, with AMD and Intel fighting for enthusiasts hearts and minds in the world of CPUs. GPUs will see a tough three-way battle between AMD GPG (ex-ATI), Nvidia and newcomer Intel with its Larrabee cGPU. But one of main building block was launched yesterday, in 2008. Hynix introduced a chip with a friendly and “easily understandable” name: H5GQ1H24AFR. Even though the name looks like something that ENIGMA would encrypt, we’re talking about 128MB (1Gbit) memory
ANALYSIS: Why will GDDR5 rule the world?
This memory standard will become a pervasive memory during next four years in much more fields than “just” graphics. Just like GDDR3 ended up in all three consoles, network switches, cellphones and even cars and planes, GDDR5 brings a lot of new features that are bound to win more customers from different markets. Background The reason for development of radical ideas inside GDDR5 lies in the fact that ATI was looking at future GPU architectures, and concluded that the DRAM industry has to take a radical step in design and offer interface more flexible than any other memory standard. Then, ATI experienced huge issues with
TSMC introduces 40nm volume production, advances in front of Intel
A while ago, I spoke with my sources at TSMC, who were quite decisive to make it to the front on the field of chip manufacturing. Heads of this Taiwanese giant decided to invest more than 10 billion USD in order to become world’s most advanced manufacturer, and their roadmap is more aggressive than anyone in the industry. The results of that investment are slowly coming to life, and as of today, TSMC has more advanced manufacturing process than any other competitor in the manufacturing business. Intel will argue its (very important, though) Hafnium or High-K material, but ever since I became a journalist, Intel
