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RV740 40nm is ATI´s vessel chip
Learning one
RV740 is probably going to get many price / performance awards and it will certainly be remembered as the first 40nm desktop chip. The best thing about it is that it will get available in first week of May and the performance, and especially performance per watt looks rather promising.
One important thing you have to bear in mind is that this is a vessel chip, that is supposed to teach ATI a lot about how to make a good chip in 40nm.
That is why company chose to do the transition in entry-level segment and it will grow 40nm to a higher end segments afterwards. It first needs to learn how to do things right as it is very important for both Nvidia and ATI to win the 40nm crown in the second half of 2009.
As we speak, ATI is working on its 40nm performance chip that should get introduced later this year, but we don´t have much more details than that.