By Lars Weinand - Editor In Chief RIVA Station / Editor Tom´s Hardware Guide

ATI

At the CeBIT, ATi announced its intention to enter the mainboard chipset market. The Canadians are thereby following the general trend towards fully integrated chipsets aimed at the OEM/consumer market, which is currently being pushed by SiS, VIA, and NVIDIA.

The chipset will support either Athlon/Duron (desktop & mobile) or Pentium 4 processors, respectively. All told, there will be 5 northbridge and 2 southbridge variants:

IGP 340 referenceboard	The northbridge doesn't require a heatsink - despite VGA functionality

Northbridge

• Radeon IGP 330 - Intel Pentium 4 (400MHz CPU FSB)
• Radeon IGP 340 - Intel Pentium 4 (400/533 MHz CPU FSB)
• Radeon IGP 340M - Intel Pentium 4 Mobile (400MHz CPU FSB)
• Radeon IGP 320 - AMD Athlon / Duron
• Radeon IGP 320M - AMD Mobile Athlon 4 / Mobile Duron

The IGP (integrated graphics processor) northbridge incorporates a first-generation RADEON graphics chip (RADEON VE) and uses a 64bit memory interface to connect to the mainboard's memory (etiher PC2100/DDR266 or PC1600/DDR200). The AGP 4x slot allows for an easy graphics upgrade, should the integrated solution not meet your requirements. The mobile (M) versions also integrate ATi's POWERPLAY power saving features.

The new ATi chipset at a glance

Southbridge

• IXP 200 - 6x USB 2.0, 6-Channel Sound, 3Com 10/100 Mbit, ATA-100 IDE, PCI
• IXP 250 - like IXP 200 + advanced manageability features

Mainboard manufacturers will be able to pair the IGP northbirdge either with ATi's own IXP (IO communication processor) southbridge, which connects to the northbridge via a 266MHz A-Link, or with third-party southbridges. These will only be able to link to the northbridge via the PCI bus. IXP 200/250 offer six USB 2.0 ports, a 10/100MBit 3COM Ethernet NIC, 6-channel Dolby Surround sound as well as support for PCI v2.3. On top of that, the 250 will offer enhanced networking features like "wake-on-lan" (WOL), a "remote boot agent" and a desktop management system. The chips will first be introduced around May 2002, starting with the IGP 320 and 320M AMD solutions. The remaining Intel versions 330/340 and 340M as well as the southbridge chips 200 and 250 will then follow during the summer. ATi presented Gigabyte and FIC as mainboard launch partners.

Copyright: 19.03.2002 -   RIVA Station 2002 - Lars Weinand
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