Charlie Demerjian (over at The Inquirer) seems to have gone absolutely berserk!
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/29/nvidia-gt200-sucessor-tapes
Among other things he claims:
- The GT200b (55nm version of GT200) has now taped out.
- Only 40% of the chips on a GT200 wafer actually work, and that's including the ones that only work as GTX 260 (but not as 280).
- This means that cost per chip is ~$125 from the foundry, and more likely ~$150 with other costs factored in.
- The boards are also expensive to make because of all the memory chips, large number of layers, and heavy duty cooling.
- TDP for the 260 is 182W. For the 280 it's 236W.
- The 260 performance will be directly comparable to the RV770 ("about equal for most things"). (Nvidia has big Z-Pixel advantage, ATI has big Shader FLOPS advantage). But, of course, the 260 costs about 50% more than the RV770. The 280 will be 25% faster (than RV770, I think he means) but cost more than double the amount.
- GT200 is six months late, and they badly missed the clock speed targets.
- R700 will "crush GT200 in just about every conceivable benchmark" and probably cost less. (He also reckons it is only a month behind RV770).
- GT200b is only ~400 mm^2 unlike the 576mm^2 of the GT200. It may clock higher if the 55nm process allows better perf/watt. Board will likely be $50 cheaper. It will be out late Summer or early Autumn, "instantly obsoleting" GT200.
- GT200 supply will be very strictly limited, with only 4 AIB vendors involved initially.
- 260 and 280 prices will be $449 and $649. There is serious discussion of a $100 price-drop to bring price/perf closer to ATI level, but Charlie thinks this is unlikely.
A lot of this probably rubbish, but if there really is a GT200b on the way, and it has taped out already, that is certainly interesting.
