NVIDIA ordering 80nm G80s

Since the chips are being migrated to 80nm, we can expect some pretty hefty changes in the way the 8800 series of cards are sold. As well, the change should have some particularly beneficial performance enhancements.

First of all, the die shrink should reduce the core's surface area from 420mm² to a bit under 380mm² if the process shrink involves perfect scaling. Power consumption will also drop due to the shorter distances between transistor gates. The two of these things combined mean that we should see some lower temperatures from the next round of G80s, which would be a blessing and a half - current models are not unknown to hit a blistering 90C under load.

The second blessing will come with cost - the die shrink means that there will be quite a few more chips per wafer. On the 90nm process, NVIDIA gets about 80 chips gross (meaning before defective chips are thrown out) out of each wafer. The move down to 80nm should increase this turnout to roughly 90 chips, a 12.5% increase. The increased yield will allow NVIDIA to drop the cost of the chips a bit, which we will hopefully see filter into the marketplace sooner than later.
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/01...ders_80nm_g80s