Quote Originally Posted by gojirasan View Post
You AMD fanboys are the ones who don't listen to reason. AMD right or wrong! I checked that link and there was no mention of how much Nvidia or AMD are paying for their TSMC wafers. It was also a "known fact" that the R600 was going to blow away the competition. Until it was released. Then all the AMD fanboys were proven wrong. I have yet to see any facts here. If they are so known, then why is it so difficult to cite your sources? And "well grounded predictions"? That is totally idiotic. There's nothing "well grounded" about your wild guesses. Nothing. I think you are morons for making the assumptions that you do. You may not lack "common sense" but you certainly lack critical reasoning skills.
I see the 2900 as the beta for the 4870, the 2900 did not live up to expectations, perhaps because it was released a year early on an out of date technology!

Factors influencing die cost:
Die size
Bulk wafer cost
Fabrication process
Yield

Area G200:R770 = 256:576 = 9:4 = 2.25
Cost (1GB DDR3 ASUS Cards) 4850:GTX280 £183.59:£339.56 = 1.85

This is a difficult comparison since the 4850 1GB is the most expensive model and the only 1GB variant on Scan and the GTX280 is their cheapest model. However, moving to more expensive GTX280s brings the cost ratio in line with the die density ratio.

So yes, the cost of the competing TMSC GPUs correlates at around 1:1 with die area after any reduction in cost due to using a 65nm rather than 55nm process. My guess is that this is offset by poor yield due to high area.

Not using the latest technology node (65nm) is part of why the 2900 (90nm) did not live up to expectations.