NVIDIA's Jen Hsun Huang stated that their NV40 core is actually cheaper to produce than ATI's R420 core. He said that the NV40's with its 222 million transistors build on the 0.13 micron non low-k process are only 7% bigger than ATI's X800 core.
Because Low K is more expensive NVIDIA's chip actually ends up cheaper than ATI theirs.
Our ATI knowledgeable source said that could be possible if it used more layer on chips or even if it used a 110 nanometre process. Nvidia was clear in the past that it is using 130 nanometres, but in this industry you never know.
From logic it means that 60 millions of transistors means a significantly larger die but it is all about packaging I guess.
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