The RV790XT Core Changes
The RV770 as it was couldn't withstand this increase in clockspeed, even if it was a damn near perfect batch of cherry-picked chips for every run (which means that costs would be through the very literal roof). Instead, the RV790XT has a secret - an extra three million transistors.
Along with an increase in total to 959 million transistors, the upgraded core also packs in some very essential features, which surround the entire core. We're being literal - the edges of the chip are where these extra transistors reside. But what do they actually do?
Called the Decap ring, these three million transistors act as miniature decoupling capacitors, also known as decaps. Their purpose is to reduce signal noise, monitor the power distribution (which manages heat output), and manage the timing of the entire chip. Through monitoring of the core timing, this means that higher clocks can be increasingly stable; not only that but they can increase them at stock too - granting the 100MHz core increase mentioned earlier.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012