First photographs from NV40

[Fodder]

I know someone was after a shot of the backside of a PCX 5950 board, but I don't remember who, or were.

Anyhow, here you go, mystery person.

 

[Xmas]

Wasn't there talk of nVidia artificially increasing the die size on some cores to improve heat transfer to the heatsink? Is that even a viable option?

Certainly. And they might have added lots of transistors to avoid hotspots.

 

[MuFu]

Wasn't there talk of nVidia artificially increasing the die size on some cores to improve heat transfer to the heatsink? Is that even a viable option?

Certainly. And they might have added lots of transistors to avoid hotspots.

Why do they add transistors? Doesn't it make more sense to leave areas of the metal layers completely unmasked?