R650, 65 nanometre comes in Q3

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If this is true the only real advantage of 65nm is manufacturing cost, not necessarily better cooling or OC. Unless they revamp the arch some how to accommodate better cooling or OC'ing. If it's true they are doing this (taking with a grain of salt) making this nothing more then a die shrink, there is no tangible advantage for the consumer.

Smaller process size has several benefits, the most popular and common is more clock speed. Then of course you have trade offs. For example do you use the extra transistor budget to get more performance out or do you get better yields

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Smaller process size has several benefits, the most popular and common is more clock speed. Then of course you have trade offs. For example do you use the extra transistor budget to get more performance out or do you get better yields

Or more importantly:

LOWER POWER CONSUMPTION @ similar clock speeds.

Of course obviously the smaller die size usually translates to a higher clockspeed at similar voltage because there is less heat, but I think AMD will welcome the former.

It looks like the current 80nm R600 will overclock very well on the stock cooler and stock volts, and is underclocked to stay in the 2x6-pin power envelope of <225W. It seems to me overclocking is disabled with 2x6-pin because of this, but yet with >225w it soars way above the set ~750mhz default clock with the stock cooler, and even higher given proper cooling; but that's a given considering it has the leg-room to use up to 300; although granted we don't know how much is actually used with a high overclock and proper cooling. The point is, what's holding it back is the power usage AND heat.

The shrink to 65nm screams to me that power-suckage will drop dramatically, perhaps to around 175W or so, that this will no longer be an issue compared to current parts. Heat will obviously as well be less of a factor. It may clock better overall, but I imagine we'll see a default clock jump to below what the current 80nm chips are capable of just to keep, as you mentioned, yields high, but more importantly power consumption low(er). One can assume the default vGPU will be lower, with a nice trade-off between clocks and power usage. The situation may have turned out different if the R600 wasn't inherently a power hog, but it is, so this to me seems the only way AMD can go.

Hopefully the 225W wall (I'm thinking R650 will def be 2x6-pin or 1x8-pin) doesn't hurt their ability to clock the 65nm part higher at stock, or from overclockers with xtreme cooling from doing their thing past the default like the current (is 9 days still the future?) cards seem to be with the up to 300w allowance.