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(in http://www.techpowerup.com/84409/NV..._PCB_Further_Reduces_Manufacturing_Costs.html)NVIDIA Designs New GTX 260 PCB, Further Reduces Manufacturing Costs
The introduction of the new G200b series graphics processors sought to revive NVIDIA's stronghold over the high-end graphics market, by reducing manufacturing costs, and facilitating high-end graphics cards at unusually low price-points, to compete with rival ATI. The first SKU using the G200b GPU was the new GeForce GTX 260. The PCB of design of the new model (P654) saw several drastic changes, that also ended up contributing to the cost-cutting: all memory chips were placed in the business end of the PCB, and the VRM area rearranged. News emerging from Expreview suggests that NVIDIA has worked out an even newer PCB reference design (model: P897) that aims mainly to cut production costs further. The reference design graphics board based on the PCB will be given the internal name "D10U-20". A short list of changes is as follows:
The new PCB is expected to reduce costs by as much as US $15 which will impact on the overall product cost, and help step up the competitiveness. Expreview notes that the new PCB will be available to the partners by the third week of this month. Below are the drawing and picture of the PCB. For reference, the second picture is that of the older P654 design.
- The number of PCB layers has been reduced from 10 to 8, perhaps to compress or remove blank, redundant or rudimentary connections
- A 4+2 phase NVVDD power design using the ADP4100 voltage regulator IC, the FBVDDQ circuit has been reduced from 2 phases to 1, and the MOSFET package has been changed from LFPAK to DPAK grouping, to reduce costs. The ADP4100 lacks the I2C interface, which means voltage control will be much more difficult than on current PCBs of the GeForce 260,280, 285 and 295
- The optional G200b support-brace has been removed
- While the length of the PCB remains the same, the height has been reduced to cut costs
- BIOS EEPROM capacity reduced from 1 ***** (128 KB) to 512 Kb (64 KB)
- Cheaper DVI connectors
Nos comentários, a certo ponto lê-se isto:
by AddSub (February 7th - 2:21 PM)
With the global economy in such a bad shape this was to be expected. In fact they have already reduced costs with their 55nm lineup. The coolers on their 55nm lineup have been cut down. When compared to the coolers on the original 65nm GTX 260/280 lineup, the new coolers are lighter, have no back cover, heatpipes are shorter and smaller and many benchmarks reveal that in many situations 55nm parts actually run hotter than 65nm parts. Cutting down on the actual circuitry was the next logical step. They are taking the route AMD took a year ago. Hence the massive jump in Radeon 3xxx RMA's when compared to the previous generation, something that also carried on with the Radeon 4xxx lineup. In the following months you can expect a heathy increase in threads with titles such as "OMG! My brand new GTX 260 is DEAD after 2 days" or "My brand new nvidia GPU is artifacting at stock clocks!". Just watch.
Nehalem from Intel and 65nm GTX GPU's from nVidia are truly the last quality products we will see from both manufacturers since due to the worsening global economic conditions they will be cutting down on quality assurance along with everybody else in the industry. Here is an easy prediction: next massive GPU release from nVidia (384SP monster) gets pushed back by at least 6 months."