ATI R600 GPU Spotted?

It looks like some spy photos of ATI's upcoming R600 DX10-class GPU have hit the web. Zol.com has some photos posted of a chip that is allegedly an R600. According to the site the chip is comprised of over 500 million transistors and it's manufactured on TSMC's 80nm half-node. If this information is correct, that would make the R600 about 180 million transistors "smaller" than the G80 and about 116 million transistors "bigger" then R580. This coupled with the news that the chip is built at 80nm, means the R600 should be cheaper to produce than the G80. And it also means that the die is a bit larger than R580's, despite being manufactured on the more advanced process. No word yet on performance or actual specifications, however. Another interesting thing to note is that the GPU die is rotated 45 degrees in the packaging. Supposedly, this is to shorten traces and facilitate routing to video memory.

Tags:  ATI, GPU, R600, TED