There have been some reports on a new chip that has appeared in recent drivers from ATI. The chip dubbed RV770 appeared without any prior notice and there was no explanation to what it could be. Speculations suggested that it would be the chip used for the next generation R700 card from ATI, maybe because of recent reports that chip was taped out more than a month ago and that samples are suppose to be up and running. The big difference between RV770 and RV670 is that the former is rumored to contain two cores instead of just one.
A user at Chinese forum Chiphell published pictures of a single-die PCB, with a layout very similar to the layout of the Radeon HD 3850, claiming it to be the first shot of RV770. There are some slight differences in the memory layout and power consumption though, and there hasn’t been much talk of a single-die R700 card, but there will most likely be one, although this one is most likely not the real deal. The dual-die R700 which most reports have been about is still missing in action.
Radeon HD 3850 look-a-like
However there is little doubt that RV770 would be anything but the heart of R700. Exact specifications are still illusive, but should be quite different from what we’re used to (due to the multi-chip design).
