Radeon X700 IGP Very Soon... X1800XT Master Cards Very Late
by Kristopher Kubicki on November 10, 2005 4:56 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
RS485, RS690
With all the Crossfire news floating around these days, we have neglected to mention several new chipsets from ATI on the discrete and IGP sector. ATI's first chipset, RS485, is expected to launch before the end of the year. We first mentioned RS485 back in October, but details about the new 110nm chip appear to be circulating at the manufacturers. The new chip sports an X300 graphics core, but is pin for pin compatible with RS480 and RS482 - so expect to see motherboard manufacturers roll out the new cores very quickly. In fact, our documents reveal that RS485 is the same die as RS482, leading us to believe the only difference between RS482 and RS485 is a slightly higher clock on the IGP core.
RS690 is a step up from RS485, but will launch just about the same time. We mentioned RS690 a few months ago, but since then it appears as though ATI has established that the RS690 IGP component is the Radeon X700. Like the RS485 component, RS690 will also be pin to pin compatible with RS482. An 8 pipeline (or even 4 pipeline) IGP should help improve performance quite a bit.
ATI will also relaunch their SB450 southbridge as SB460. Like RS482/RS485, SB460 will be based on the same die as SB450. The extremely low adoption of SB450 may have spurred ATI to rework some things on the chip, but from the documents we've read, SB460 and SB450 are exactly the same chip. A pin compatible SB600 will launch at the same time as RS690 as well.
Of course, for those of you who still are begging for more Crossfire, we mentioned a little bit about RD580 - ATI's Xpress 200 Crossfire successor - last week. RD580 sports 36 PCIe lanes for native dual x16 PEG adaptors - something NVIDIA has yet to duplicate on a single chip package. RD580 is also expected to launch before the end of this year, but the manufacturers we talked to are reluctant to adopt since many of them just invested heavily into RD480.
X1800 Master Cards
Internal documents from ATI reveal that X1800XT Crossfire Edition will not enter mass production until December 4th. Generally there is a four week lag between mass production and retail availability. Thus, do not expect to see X1800XT Master Cards this year. Currently, only X1800XL and X850 Pro Master Cards are available in retail channels.
With all the Crossfire news floating around these days, we have neglected to mention several new chipsets from ATI on the discrete and IGP sector. ATI's first chipset, RS485, is expected to launch before the end of the year. We first mentioned RS485 back in October, but details about the new 110nm chip appear to be circulating at the manufacturers. The new chip sports an X300 graphics core, but is pin for pin compatible with RS480 and RS482 - so expect to see motherboard manufacturers roll out the new cores very quickly. In fact, our documents reveal that RS485 is the same die as RS482, leading us to believe the only difference between RS482 and RS485 is a slightly higher clock on the IGP core.
RS690 is a step up from RS485, but will launch just about the same time. We mentioned RS690 a few months ago, but since then it appears as though ATI has established that the RS690 IGP component is the Radeon X700. Like the RS485 component, RS690 will also be pin to pin compatible with RS482. An 8 pipeline (or even 4 pipeline) IGP should help improve performance quite a bit.
ATI will also relaunch their SB450 southbridge as SB460. Like RS482/RS485, SB460 will be based on the same die as SB450. The extremely low adoption of SB450 may have spurred ATI to rework some things on the chip, but from the documents we've read, SB460 and SB450 are exactly the same chip. A pin compatible SB600 will launch at the same time as RS690 as well.
Of course, for those of you who still are begging for more Crossfire, we mentioned a little bit about RD580 - ATI's Xpress 200 Crossfire successor - last week. RD580 sports 36 PCIe lanes for native dual x16 PEG adaptors - something NVIDIA has yet to duplicate on a single chip package. RD580 is also expected to launch before the end of this year, but the manufacturers we talked to are reluctant to adopt since many of them just invested heavily into RD480.
X1800 Master Cards
Internal documents from ATI reveal that X1800XT Crossfire Edition will not enter mass production until December 4th. Generally there is a four week lag between mass production and retail availability. Thus, do not expect to see X1800XT Master Cards this year. Currently, only X1800XL and X850 Pro Master Cards are available in retail channels.
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stmok - Friday, November 18, 2005 - link
I've always wondered...Why isn't there an IGP solution for the enthusiast on a budget?Who wouldn't want to have a X700 or GF6600 IGP solution? That would be good enough for
me!
Hacp - Friday, November 11, 2005 - link
THe 9700 Pro with 8 pipelines.Myrandex - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
This sounds like a sweet application for a low cost gaming laptop dependent on the memory bandwidth of the solution (esp looking at single channel socket 754 format, a thing most laptops are).Jason
BPB - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
Now this, I think, is worth waiting for (if it is indeed going to be here by end of year). An X700 based IGP would be great. I know several people who don't game on PC's much and they would love these. I would assume they'll beat the just released 6150's. And I assume many will have at least decent sound, maybe even pretty darn good sound. The more I think about it the more I like it.eastvillager - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
They don't have to win, they just have to prove they can do it, which they're doing with the other masters. I'm not saying it was in any way a good idea to put them so far out, but I doubt they had any real choice.skunkbuster - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
isnt the X700 just a faster version of the x600? and the x600 was similar to the radeon 9600?JarredWalton - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
X700 is R410 and is 8 pixel, 6 vertex pipelines. X600 is RV380 and has 4 pixel, 2 vertex. Needless to say, the X700 is significantly better than X600. X600 is in many ways just a slightly faster version of X300.ViRGE - Thursday, November 10, 2005 - link
Really, is ATI even trying any more with this generation? January gives Nvidia another 2 months to run amok, never mind whatever future products they have in the pipeline.