AMD prepares 55nm HD2400 and HD2600

Theo Valich
19 November 2007

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AMD IS PREPARING an interesting offering. After ordering massive amounts of 55nm 300mm wafers from TSMC containing Number of The Beast (RV670 comes with 666M trannies), it turns out that RV670 was just the beginning.

There are several new models coming to market based on these new 55nm chips. The RV620 is going to exist as a desktop card, succeeding the 2400Pro and 2400 XT, while the mobile part will come in a typically modular configuration. Since the lowest possible power is of essence, this won't be a turbo-charged part. RV620 is all about bringing affordable UVD to the world of desktops and noteboks, and not consuming too much power.

The RV635 is a bit of a different story. This part needs to fill out the hole between the low-end and the 3850, so you can expect that this one will offer quite a lot of performance in a 100 USD price range. It will exist in two parts, essentially the same 2600Pro and 2600XT that you can buy on a market today.

Some specs of RV635 leaked from usual sources on Far East, and they speak of 800 MHz GPU cloc and 256MB of GDDR3 memory for the fastest part (dubbed RV635XT), while RV635Pro should have GPU ticking at 600 MHz and offer 512MB of DDR2 memory.

According to our sources, these chips might switch into the wonderful world of HD3400 and 3600 series, but the question remains is it smart to combine DX10.0 part with a DX10.1 one. In any case, you can forget about monikers such as XT and Pro, since it is certain that they will come to market using AMD's new naming convention. 2430, 2450 and 2470, 2650 and 2670 are first names that pop into mind...

Interesting part in all cases is power consumption, that should be around 15% better than previous 65nm parts. On board level, 2600XT will consume rougly equal amount of power as RV635XT, since AMD opted to save GDDR4 memory for its RV670 part known as HD 3870. In cases where 2600XT came equipped with GDDR3 memory, power consumption on new parts will be down by 10%.

Timeframe for all these parts is February 2008, just around time of R680 (HD3870 X2). New boards will follow new pricing, that is certantly guaranteed to spark some interest from the low-end crowd.

You can expect that these chips mostly target Montevina designs and to let Nvidia and other partners enjoy the 65nm wafers, while AMD is utilizing 55nm part and is improving 45nm process in TSMC. As it might seem, TSMC just might get into the 45nm world sooner than AMD's Fab36 in Dresden. µ