ATI Update: Coming to an AMD desktop near you
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 16, 2004 3:21 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
RS300 turned more than one head; cheap, reliable IGP performance for Intel processors. Small Form Factor PCs benifited the most from the alternative to Intel's 845G and 865G. With RS350 close to induction, today we take a look even further into the future for a glimpse at RS400 and the extremely exciting RS480.
Much like RS300, RS400 is an Intel based core logic and will still sport DX8.1 integrated graphics (Radeon 9100). Manufacturers claim the new RS400 will support the next successor to 800FSB. PCI-Express and DDR2 will also be fully supported. A-Link II appears to be a PCI-Express interconnect from the Northbridge to the Southbridge. Fortunately, we will see support for DDR and DDR2 at release.
| 2004 Pentium 4 Chipset Roadmap | ||
|---|---|---|
| Chipset |
RS400 |
|
| FSB Support | 400/533/800/1000+MHz |
|
| Memory Bus Width | Dual
64-bit |
|
| Memory Type(s) Supported | DDR-400 DDR2-533/667 |
|
| External Graphics Interface | 1
PCI-E x16 |
|
| Integrated Graphics Interface |
DX8.1 |
|
| Other Interfaces |
A-Link II |
|
| Availability |
Mid 2004
|
|
RS480 looks to become ATI's first AMD K8 core logic. The RS480 also incorporates PCI-Express, and will ship with a DX8.1 IGP solution. All sources indicate that we probably will not see a true DX9 IGP until after RS480 and RS400.
| 2004 Athlon 64 Chipset Roadmap | ||
|---|---|---|
| Chipset |
RS480 |
|
| FSB Support | 1.6GHz+
HyperTransport |
|
| Memory Bus Width | N/A |
|
| Memory Type(s) Supported | N/A |
|
| External Graphics Interface | 1
PCI-E x16 |
|
| Integrated Graphics Interface |
DX8.1 |
|
| Other Interfaces |
A-Link II |
|
| Availability |
Q3 '04
|
|
Paired with RS480 and RS400, ATI will also unveil its newest southbridge, SB400. SB400 looks fairly comparable to south bridge solutions from VIA, SiS and NVIDIA. SB400 is compatible with RS480 and RS400. The option to go with 4 SATA devices looks like a good decision on ATI's behalf. There is no LAN support on SB400. SB400 is slated for Azalia Audio support, although we may see an implementation similar to VIA's VT8251 southbridge with both Azalia and AC'97.
| 2004 Southbridge Roadmap | ||
|---|---|---|
| South Bridge |
SB400 |
|
| Parallel ATA Channels | 2
(4 devices) |
|
| Serial ATA Channels | 4
(4 devices) |
|
| Raid Support | 0,1,
0+1 |
|
| USB 2.0 Support | 8
ports |
|
| PCI Express Support |
4 PCI-E
x1 |
|
| Audio |
8ch.
Azalia 6 ch. AC'97 |
|
| Availability |
Q3 '04 |
|
Feel free to check out our other core logic updates from VIA,
SiS and
Intel.
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8 Comments
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KristopherKubicki - Saturday, April 17, 2004 - link
Justly: Typo, Thanks.Kristopher
sprockkets - Saturday, April 17, 2004 - link
I wish someone would look at the SIS760, since it has a dedicated 32MB of memory just for the video.justly - Friday, April 16, 2004 - link
"The RS480 also supports DDR2" really, in the picture under this statement it shows "Memory Type(s) Supported N/A".Why would ANY Athlon 64 chipset have support for ANY type of memory?
TrogdorJW - Friday, April 16, 2004 - link
Are we really going to see DX9 chipsets from Nvidia or Intel before these ship? Somehow I doubt it. ATI and Nvidia are too busy milking their DX9 cash cows to provide such features to the low-end integrated graphics market. I think KK has it right with his statement: "All sources indicate that we probably will not see a true DX9 IGP until after RS480 and RS400."Of course, even when DX9 IGP solutions come out, they're going to pretty much suck. The only thing that would save them is if they had at least 32 MB of integrated DDR RAM running at 300+ MHz. Performance of a DX9 IGP when it's sharing the 6.4 MBps of memory bandwidth with the CPU and other devices is not even going to match an FX5200, which is basically incapable of running DX9 games properly already!
As for Intel releasing anything worthwhile on the graphics front, I'll believe it when I see it. They're still giving us "Extreme Graphics 2" solutions that perform about as well as my old GeForce 256 SDR card. That's about four years behind cutting edge, and somehow I think Intel is a little more concerned with the CPU wars right now.
KristopherKubicki - Friday, April 16, 2004 - link
Sapphire was the only one who made a mobo off it. This is their first K8 board at least.Kristopher
Cygni - Friday, April 16, 2004 - link
This isnt ATI's first AMD corelogic. In fact, their very first chipset, the Radeon IGP 320, was for the AMD Socket A platform. Somebody fall asleep at the wheel? heh.http://mirror.ati.com/products/radeonigp/rigp320.h...
UlricT - Friday, April 16, 2004 - link
I thought ATi was saying some time ago that they would be the first to have DX9 support in their IGP??? Or were they talking about DX8? Anyway, competition is always good for the market eh?gauravsharma311 - Friday, April 16, 2004 - link
kinda crappy considering Intel will have DX9 in their chipsets within a few months, and nvidia prob. will too.