As announced a few days ago, the first 40nm graphics chip Advanced Micro Devices' graphics division ATI was able to pull out its RV740. From what we've learned, the GPU was believed to be the successor of RV730, yet it seems that this is far from the truth; at least, this is what the latest news says. The next-generation 40nm graphics core is, in fact, derived from the company's RV770LE GPU.

The new GPU the red graphics manufacturer managed to tape out is reported to be a 40nm version of the well known RV770LE core. The specifications list of the chip shows it as featuring 640 stream processors and packing up GDDR5 memory. The HD 4870 card already comes with GDDR5, and RV740 will also benefit from this technology, while featuring a 128-bit memory interface. The memory clock frequency will be 900MHz (3.6GHz effective), and the GPU is said to be able to deliver 57.6GB/s.

According to the news, AMD does not plan to release to the market only RV740 cards featuring GDDR5, versions with GDDR2, GDDR3 and even GDDR4 are also expected to surface, which would offer users quite a range of choices. Since it is manufactured under the 40nm fabrication process, the power consumption of RV740 is said to be much lower than that of an HD 4830, yet the card should end up much faster.

AMD expects this card to hit the market by the second quarter of the next year. The Sunnyvale chip maker is reported to see the RV740 as the best value/performance graphics processing unit it has ever released. Moreover, this is the first 40nm GPG chip with all IP being re-designed and characterized for 40nm. The performance level of RV740 is expected to be somewhere between HD 4830 and HD 4850. The price of the RV740 cards should be under $100.