Over the weekend, a Team ATI forum administrator who calls himself “ATi_Guy” posted a link to a PDF whitepaper containing some details of the yet-unreleased RV670 graphics processor, dubbed the ATI Radeon HD 3800. Not surprisingly, the leak appears to have originated from AMD itself and happened just before Nvidia launched its competing GeForce 8800 GT product.

The 12-page whitepaper reveals details on AMD’s 55nm transistor design, and their support for PCI Express 2.0. But perhaps the most interesting information from AMD about RV670 is the fact that it is going to be the first DX10.1 compliant hardware, bringing several improvements to global illumination, shadowing and new anti-aliasing features for more realistic environments. AMD's upcoming RV670 graphics processor is expected to roll out on November 15. More details are available in the DirectX 10.1 whitepaper.