AMD shows 28nm wafer GlobalFoundries to meet new card?

[Particle]

It was indeed high end in the ATI lineup, replacing the 2900XT. The status of nvidias products at the time is irelevant.

--Matt

That's awfully presumptuous. The decision of what product to test on a new process could have been any of the following:

1) Mainstream by own company standards (internal product selection)
2) Mainstream by global standards (market-based product selection if they're aiming for a certain kind of product range)
3) Mainstream by die size (technical product selection)

Nobody knows which of these is true, and #3 is the most likely.

Try it on something small/easier and also cheap. Then, sell it as a market mainstream so it actually makes you some money that late in the product generation cycle. That's what I would do in that position as it makes a lot of sense both from a business and technical point of view compared to other options. It would hardly make sense to shrink a massive chip to a new process late in the cycle unless they're still selling them by the truckload. Mainstream parts move a lot more units.