Wednesday, April 11th 2007

R600 "naked"

Fudzilla has managed to snap a picture of the R600 card - this time, with the cooler off. By the looks of it, pictures of the core found on the web a few months ago didn't lie:

The card above has 1024 MB of memory and "some dodgy drivers". It is interesting to see the core tilted the way it is. This will disable all current water cooling blocks (and perhaps air heatsinks) from being compatible with the card. An adapter, or a different retention mechanism, could perhaps fix this. Also note that ATI's R600 does not use a heatspreader on the core.

In addition, the card uses 2 power connectors: 1 standard 6-pin PCI Express, and 1 8-pin connector:

All of the pictures are from the 12 inch card, which should be identical to the smaller version (except for the heatsink).
Source: Fudzilla
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32 Comments on R600 "naked"

#1
anticlutch
Wow... I can only imagine how much power it'll need to try and Crossfire two of those cards :P
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#2
m3lisk
Freaking sweet. Can't wait till they are released so I can Crossfire. Gonna buy one at first, then I'll go in for the kill with another. Probably going to have to buy a 1 kilowatt to power them both though. Imagine the possibilities. Dual core AMD 2.8, 4 gigs ram quad channel and two top of the line R600 cards, all at a nice total of like 1400 dollars, but itll be worth the performance. I think I may wait until the xx50 cards come out instead though...
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#3
selway89
Hmm im interested in the X2600XT cards when they are out, thats if theres any difference to my current X1950XT... It has more shaders tho so im thinking it will be. Also the X2600XT apparently has a nice price too.

Unlikely that ill end up getting the full fat version tho, unless i win the lotto.
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#4
ryboto
why would waterblocks need to be redesigned??? the mounting holes are the same, right? so, what exactly is the problem?
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#5
TUngsten
that top pic of the heatsink removed looks like shitty die-cast metal underneath...like the crappy slag that Matchbox cars are made of, as opposed to aluminum
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#6
Conti027
wooooo thats hot and its naked te-hehe
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#7
D_o_S
Moderator
rybotowhy would waterblocks need to be redesigned??? the mounting holes are the same, right? so, what exactly is the problem?
Most blocks have an area that is slightly lower than the surroundings, to make contact with the core. Since this is square, and the R600 core is "diamond", you will not get good contact.
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#8
ktr
Good to hear that they did NOT use that thermal foil...
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#9
hotrippr
D_o_SMost blocks have an area that is slightly lower than the surroundings, to make contact with the core. Since this is square, and the R600 core is "diamond", you will not get good contact.
It may not be a problem, I still think the square will contact it enough, depending on how big the square is on the waterblock you use, it may even cover the corners. Someone will come out with a bracket to rotate the block 45o. Who will be the first to try it with the corners exposed???:eek:
Although that gpu looks alot bigger than r580 or is because of lack of heatspreader? How many ram chips?
Posted on Reply
#10
erocker
*
Can't wait for the new diamond shaped waterblocks and heatsinks that will, I'm sure be introduced within the next couple of weeks. I'm getting one the second they come out. I have a new system ready and waiting for it.
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#11
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
so thats not going to be the top of line card?
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#12
RickyG512
why does dat one get a bigger cooler and the other version is the EXACT same card gets a smaller cooler
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#13
demonbrawn
Wow, I can't believe you now need two power connectors. I was hoping they could invest some time into figuring out a way to make it more conservative with its power...
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#14
DrunkenMafia
why is the core in a diamond shape for, maybe one of the techies stuck it on sideways and went... "Hey that looks kinda cool". :P

The cooling companies will love that idea though coz now all of us dumb users have to go and buy new coolers and waterblocks...

And the world goes on

I am pretty sure that hearsink over the ram etc is NOT aluminium!! It looks like some sort of diecast metal... What the???? I will be pulling that piece of poo off straight away!!! :)
Posted on Reply
#15
Casheti
I'll probably just wait for like a £100 version...

Hey I just noticed there's a little rotatable "open and close" thing on the fan.

As for pulling off the crappy metal, you won't have to, because this is the version which is only being used in OEM computers and not retail, right?
Posted on Reply
#16
yogurt_21
I don't see a problem with the waterblocks, as long as the bracket around the gpu remains square, then you just need a non full pcb block (such as the DD maze4 gpu or swiftec blocks)

and core contact wont be a problem, I've had several blocks which oriented at a 45degree angle to fit the mounting holes , never had any issue with contact on the square core.
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#18
anticlutch
Wow that card is LONG. Both my x1950pro and 8800GTS are almost touching my hard drive rack but that card is just... wow.
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#19
Casheti
The card is smaller than an 8800, it just looks big because of the cooler. This version will only be used in OEM PC's. Retail will be 9.5 inches I think...
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#21
anticlutch
Oh, much better then. From the pictures it looked like it was going to be at least 15" long :laugh:
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#22
Flint
From earlier pics posted a few weeks ago, it seems that the retail cooler resembles the 8800GTX cooler, with the card measuring 9.5 inches.
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#23
Waldoinsc
The NVNews pics show what appears to be an aluminum heat spreader with thermal pads for the memory and the VR chips. The fan blows across the other side to disipate the heat from these. The heat pipes and the copper radiator cool the GPU only by the looks of things...however the back of the heat pipe unit looks like it doesn't quite line up with the mounting holes in the Fud photo. Also the contact area on the copper is square to the diamond shape of the GPU. I'd like to see a better pic of the back of the heat pipe.
Wouldn't current coolers work with this anyhow?

It seems to me that the challenge will be using thermal paste vice pads since there is no integrated heat spreader in the GPU. All the AS5 shorting out the surrounding circuitry?
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#24
Flint
With regards to the rotated die weren't NVIDIA's first 256-bit dies (NV35 onwards) rotated by 45 degrees on the chip packaging? If so how were those cooling solutions? As for IHS on the GPU itself, it's very rare to see that..the Nvidia 8800's IHS being the only one I believe.
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#25
WeStSiDePLaYa
blocks wont need to be redesigned at all. all current gpu blocks have a contact area the size of the gpu pcb.

That pcb looks the same as current high end gpus.
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