Saturday, June 28th 2008
NVIDIA in a Rush for 55nm Parts, has Partners 'Red-Eyed'
With the cost of manufacture for a standard G200 die reaching up to US $110, thanks to yields as low as 40 per cent, NVIDIA seems to be in a rush for a 55nm revamp of its current GPUs. While nothing revolutionary is on the cards, and with 55nm G92b already in the making, NVIDIA plans to revamp its G200 graphics processors to the 55nm fab process, increasing yields up to 50 per cent. At 55nm, the G200 die will be effectively reduced to 470 sq. mm, implies 120 dice on a 300mm wafer.
The pace at which things are moving is having the partners red-eyed. NVIDIA's new Unilateral Minimum Advertised Price Policy (UMAP) has limited partners' playing field and minimizes competition between them. When NVIDIA at the same time decides to launch new cards based on existing cores, at lower prices, partners get upset over diminishing earnings. Add to that AMD's new RV770 chip is looking very tempting to some of these partners.
Source:
NordicHardware
The pace at which things are moving is having the partners red-eyed. NVIDIA's new Unilateral Minimum Advertised Price Policy (UMAP) has limited partners' playing field and minimizes competition between them. When NVIDIA at the same time decides to launch new cards based on existing cores, at lower prices, partners get upset over diminishing earnings. Add to that AMD's new RV770 chip is looking very tempting to some of these partners.
33 Comments on NVIDIA in a Rush for 55nm Parts, has Partners 'Red-Eyed'
470sqmm is STILL huge.
nvidia controls too much and might actually hurt itself in the long run ...
But yes, merely shrinking everything to 55nm wouldn't help them much. It can only send costs down (which it hasn't, 9800 GTX+ costs more than the virgin GTX). They need a something with 144/160/172 SP's.
-Indybird
Crack the whip Nvidia, bring on the 55nm.Because they can 'afford' to, even if the ratio to ATi card sale(s) is low. ATi has a lot of catching up to do both financially and in resources.
With the numbers RV770 is able to produce (across OGL, DX9, DX10) it should happen rather quickly.
Timing is perfect right now for ATI to fire up their own campaign like what nVidia has with TWIMTBP, and I'd fathom to say many game devs would hop on rather quickly . . . and if ATI could garner more developer support pushing DX10.1, it would truly make things interesting.
the only wrench in the works is probably the amount of money nVidia offer development teams as well, which is something ATI can't really do to a similar extent.
But, we've got some big league titles scheduled for this year, that are rumored to have DX10 support . . . prime crop for ATI to hop on the ball and help them impliment DX10.1 . . . STALKER: Clear Sky, (FEAR) Project Origin and Splinter Cell: Convictions are all slated for late Q3/Q4 release. Seeing ATI work with these teams would be a big bonus to coincide with the flagship 4870x2 release.
Btw: congratz on your promotion (?) to staff, dude!
kickasssmashass card that can scale upto four GPUs. So you can buy a CFX board, keep adding a card whenever feasible and end up with a strong GP-sub system.Kids don't need to sell crack to buy a solid graphics card anymore, their X-Mas income + Mr. Wilson's lawn income would suffice.