A method for producing high-performance chain link plates with a link plate pitch T, comprises: clocked feeding of a sheet metal band with a feed length V per cycle, pre-punching at least two chain link plate blanks arranged in succession, re-cutting at least one chain link plate blank, wherein at least the still connected head areas of the chain link plate blanks arranged in succession are excepted from the re-cutting process separating the connected head areas of chain link plate blanks arranged in succession, wherein the feed length V is smaller than 2.1×T and the upper and/or lower side of the head areas connected to each other is/are provided at least partially with a concave run by a punching process substantially adjacent to the end face produced later. A method is also provided for producing a high-performance chain and to correspondingly produced high-performance link plates and high-performance chain.