55nm G92b die-shot @ PCPer

Well based on the coin shot, it does look like a 20-21% scaling to me, resulting in a 260-265mm² chip instead of a 330mm² chip. Although from another POV, the coin shot makes no sense either: the coin is slightly wider than it is tall, while based on the fact it's diagonal on the horizontal direction (if you see what I mean...) it should be slightly taller instead.

This is a bit ridiculous, having a ruler-based measurement and a die shot with a coin next to it, and we can't even decide what the die size is precisely. Bah!
 
The 2 coin shots are really the same scale, and both around 1.6% wide. By upscaling y i get 183x188 pixels for 65nm and 164x168 for 55nm, ie a 20% reduction in area. I guess he hasn't measured the 65nm for a comparable number...
 
GX2 is EOL. The longer it is out there, its just cannibalizing GTX280/260 sales.
G92b is already going to cannibalize GTX260 sales, IMO.

Why would you pay twice as much for the GTX 260 when it has such a small performance boost? It has 22% lower texture rate and only 2% higher math speed. The only plus is 75% more BW and the architectural tweaks.

In the end, a GTX 260 will be maybe 25% faster with AA enabled. It won't even buy you one resolution step.
 
"By my crude measurements, the 55nm die is 15.2mm high, or 231 mm^2 in comparison to the 65nm G92's die area of 324mm^2 - a savings of approximately 40%." - PC Perspective


Seems like someone did a bad job with these 2 screenshots. ;)

I will try to do better...


First, this is my "old" die sizes comparison (now with R600) :

GPU-Dies.png



My "old" G92b size estimation is based on the TSMC documentation:
TSMC's 55nm process is a 90% linear shrink process from the 65nm process. It provides cost savings while maintaining the same speed with similar or lower power. ...



I used my photoshop skills to adjust these 2 new screenshots. ( Sorry for the oversized picture :oops:)

G92_vs_G92b_Dies.gif



An now some maths based on this animate GIF :

G92 ...: 18mm x 18mm = 324mm²

G92 ...: 112 pixels x 111 pixels = 12432 pixels
G92b .: 102 pixels x 99 pixels = 10098 pixels

Ratio .: 12432 / 10098 = 1.2311 ---> 324mm² / 1.2311 = ~263mm²

G92b .: 16.39mm * 16.05mm = ~263mm²



My "old" estimation : ~270mm² (TSMC doc)
My new estimation : ~263mm² (Screenshots)
Difference : 2.5%

:cool:
 
My new estimation : ~263mm²
Heh. I actually came up with ~272mm^2 with these new pics by counting pixels.
But in any case, looks like it's pretty much the same size as rv770... So those now really should have the same manufacturing costs (save yield issues depending how redundancy is handled), maybe this should help answer who's got the more efficient, power-efficient etc. design :).
 
But in any case, looks like it's pretty much the same size as rv770... So those now really should have the same manufacturing costs (save yield issues depending how redundancy is handled), maybe this should help answer who's got the more efficient, power-efficient etc. design :).

Let's see...

Code:
                    [B]Core      Shaders    Memory     Size[/B]
[B]GeForce 9800 GTX+[/B] : 738 MHz   1836 MHz   2200 MHz   270mm²
[B]Radeon HD 4850[/B]    : 625 MHz    625 MHz   1986 MHz   256mm²
[B]Difference[/B]        :  -18.1%    -293.8%     -10.8%    -5.5%

Performance: Same without AA, and HD 4850 will be faster once AA and resolutions go up.

So the more efficient/mm² GPU is : ____________ :?:
 
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65->55nm is actually a 19% shrink in theory, and this was just about exactly the case for RV610 and RV630 who shrank about 17-18% to 55nm iirc, but added DX10.1 and DisplayPort. So yeah, this is a 12% optimization from G92 if true, and it actually makes G94 rather pointless. It would be very interesting to have a ~160mm² 192-bit G94-like SKU, but AFAIK they have no such thing on their roadmap.
And yes, 55nm shrinks everything, including I/O. This is unlike 80nm and 110nm actually, IIRC. And what's interesting with this is... what does it mean for GT200b?

but there's a still G94b in the works (and even G96b). a 55nm 9600GT+ (w/ hybrid sli) at 100 euros could be an interesting proposition where cost and power are a concern. of course G92 always has been too cheap for G94 to shine (and now there's RV770 which is damn too cheap)
It will be used in laptops anyway. (and G96 is almost a laptop-only chip? I never found a 9500GT card for sale)
 
but there's a still G94b in the works (and even G96b). a 55nm 9600GT+ (w/ hybrid sli) at 100 euros could be an interesting proposition where cost and power are a concern. of course G92 always has been too cheap for G94 to shine (and now there's RV770 which is damn too cheap)
It will be used in laptops anyway. (and G96 is almost a laptop-only chip? I never found a 9500GT card for sale)

You've seen a 9500 in a laptop? I was under the impression they weren't even shipping them yet, because I certainly have never seen it.
 
Rick Bergman, general manager of AMD's graphics division, said the AMD focus on a more mainstream design will enable it to roll out this fall a version for notebook computers that consumes less than 70W. "There's no way this new Nvidia core will be in notebooks this fall," Bergman said.
PUMA + RV770 + SB750 + XGP (eXternal Graphics Platform) = :love:
 
You've seen a 9500 in a laptop? I was under the impression they weren't even shipping them yet, because I certainly have never seen it.

now I think of it, there's 9500M GS but it's actually G84. but I found an OEM PC with 9500GT, so thanksfully my impression of nvidia designing GPU and not selling them is off :smile:.
 
Well, I'd say the G92b keeping up with something that has 2x the FLOPs is fairly impressive...
...and RV770 keeping up with something that has 18% more fillrate, 89% more texture rate, 136% more Z rate, and 10% more BW is also fairly impressive. ;)

BTW, RV770 has only 42% more flops.
 
PUMA + RV770 + SB750 + XGP (eXternal Graphics Platform) = :love:

A GPU with that kind of power draw is definitely a better candidate for XGP than for being built in.
While there are merits to the XGP idea, I feel that it makes most sense as a means to add decent graphics to laptops with very weak IGPs. I fear that the manufacturers of said laptops can be hesitant to promote expansion capabilities that take away an argument for an up-sell.
 
The author should say that it's approximately a 30% reduction in size instead. And yeah, that would actually be extremely close to an ideal scaling factor in both dimensions assuming linear scaling from 65 to 55nm. They had to have done some optimizing...

Maybe they cut down some parts :smile:
 
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