ATI: GT200 is NVIDIA's last monolithic chip

AMD's VP of the graphics product group Rick Bergman claims the GT200 will be NVIDIA's last monolithic "megachip". Bergman believes future high-end products from NVIDIA will consist of two (or more) small and slower chips instead of one big fast chip.

he head of graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, the former ATI Technologies, said in an interview that the recently introduced Nvidia Corp.’s GeForce GTX 200 graphics processing unit (GPU) was the last high-end monolithic “megachip”. The comment follows vows by high-ranking Nvidia execs to continue making high-end graphics chips that are massive in size and costly in price.

“I predict our competitor will go down the same path for its next GPU once they see this. They have made their last monolithic GPU,” said Rick Bergman, the vice president of AMD who heads graphics product group, reports EETimes web-site.

ATI has been utilizing multi-chip graphics setups to address the high-end market of graphics cards that are used by gamers and enthusiasts for about a year now, whereas Nvidia Corp. has been using the approach for over two years, but has been claiming for about a quarter now that single-chip high-end graphics cards are better than dual-chip approach.

Little is known about what NVIDIA has in store for us after the GeForce GTX 200 series but we do know that the GT200 will get a 55nm shrink before the end of the year, possibly already in the third quarter.

Source: X-bit Labs