Thank god that I ordered a Intel i925XE upgrade, AMD just don't cut it.

.

So with all these PCIE boards coming out... I know the graphics cards are on the way, but how much longer until we see some 1x cards? PCIE sound cards or RAID cards or networking cards? I mean... why would I buy a board like this, if I can't buy any upgrade cards to put it in it, especially since there's no integrated Ethernet and it looks like I'd be expected to provide my own?

The prospect of one of these boards with a PCIE GigE card in it is quite appealing, but when will we GET such things?

Flametastic threads with Porkster's posts lol. Obviously he's made his choice based upon brand alone, not a smart thing when it comes to technology but that's his choice. At the risk of getting flamed myself he *does* have a point about Intel platforms rolling out new tech first but everyone else is correct that they are largely irrelevant atm. The timeframe for these things to make an impact shouldn't affect anyone's decision atm or for the next 4 months for that matter.

With the general upgrade scene looking bleak for the next year these arguments are pretty irrelevant anyway. This is a transitional waiting period imo until we get the second generation of dual-core full featured platforms with the software to utilize them things will remain pretty flat.

If anything, it seems to me that nVidia is on the run. They got caught with their pants down on the FX series, and now ATI is beating them to the PCIE party. I personally think the NF4 is the better chipset, but ATI is bringing the fight to nVidia in an impressive manner. I can see HP adopting the ATI solution for the OEM crowd.

As a sidenote, I honestly thought Via was a has-been until their A64 chipsets came along - they just couldn't compete with NF2 in any meaningful way.

#42, indeego, I'd say it's a shame we can't put certain members on ignore. I can think of a choice few.

I think this is great, another AMD chipset maker to compete with price/performance/options and such. Reminds me of when nVidia came into the game. Even if this isn't so great, though I don't see anything horribly flawed except the beta-bugged ethernet, it at least gives us more options. That's always a good thing. :)

The IGP320 was ATI's previous AMD core logic chipset.

ATI's surprisingly solid first stab at the AMD core logic market.

Linky below on an actual product with this chipset.

http://www.fic.com.tw/product/motherboard/1stmainboard_detail.aspx?...

There were a number of laptops also sold with the same chipset.

iceman

Seems like the bios options for overclocking for a reference board is rather impressive. So this could be what a gamer wants especially if a SLI version becomes available. I guess it is too early to tell yet but ATI looks to be in a good position. Wins OEM side due to IGP, could win the ethusiast market if the overclocking results obtain by AnAndTech is common and improved upon.

Looks really promising. It they fixed (tweaked) the southbridge a little more (fix the usb, add SATA II, and Native Command Queuing), I think this board could be a winner for enthusiasts. Espically with the lock on the PCIe lanes.

Anandtech also overclocked the *snot* out of the board:

If you compare these overclocks to the outstanding overclocking capabilities that we found with the DFI LANParty UT nF3-250Gb, you will see that the ATI Bullhead is reaching further in Dual-Channel mode than the highest clock speed that we could reach in single-channel mode on the Socket 754 DFI.

edit:
I know that TR has an overclocking section in their article, but I just can't seem to find it ;)

Damage,

I can see where you're coming from, but the impression I got from the review was that this chipset wasn't shipping, as ATI hasn't disclosed any design wins. This leads me to beleive it will be a Q1'05 product which will face off against VIA and NVIDIA's offerings and will most likely be burried, just like their P4 chipset (except for niche markets, like an XPC).

If the boards are shipping TODAY, then that's big.

Bring the pain.

/.

Rather pedantic, but Storage Review no longer consider IOMeter a valid tool for single user environment testing.

http://storagereview.com/articles/200111/20011109Renaissance_4.html

to echo ubergerbils previous post, storagereview has shown that ncq/tcq actually reduces performance in non-server applications.

http://storagereview.com/php/benchmark/compare_rtg_2001.php?typeID=...testbedID=3&osID=4&raidconfigID=1&numDrives=1&de...[ereview.com]

Do you think that the 32MB embedded memory would make it much if any faster? If it did help considerably, then my guess is that 640x480 for Doom3 and other games is an easy reality, and maybe even 800x600 at medium or low detail...that'd be pretty sweet for a casual gamer that wants all the power of AMD64.

This looks like a great chipset for all of us who need to build the parents a new PC or who have a spare monitor lying around and want to make use of the ability to still use the on-board graphics.

The appearance of standard PCIe southbridges is good as well, with both an ATI and an ULi PCIe southbridge, those of us using alternative platforms will be able to utilise standard modern southbridges once the devices support PCIe. No more PowerPC motherboards with VIA 6231 (or worse, 686B) PCI southbridges (thinking Pegasos / AmigaOne style PowerPC here, not Apple).

The ATI southbridge looks weak though. Hopefully the ULi southbridge will be better. Looks like ATI made a stop-gap southbridge (+ cheap option southbridge) rather than a kill-all southbridge.

I hope that motherboards will include local graphics memory with this chipset - if only because it is a nice option that will increase performance for us casual PC gamers. At least it saves a bunch of money on cheap graphics cards. I hope that DVI will also be included on retail motherboards - it is an essential corporate system feature in my opinion.

This motherboard configuration is great for corporate users overall though. If it wasn't for the Intel-only issues with US corporations it would do really well. Still, maybe the problem was the lack of a cheap good chipset for K8.

I suppose it will be a good laptop solution too.

I'm a bit surprised at how the reviewer heaped praise on this board, when 1) just from the spec sheets, the NF4 will be better, 2) the south bridge is lacking and sounds familar to ATI's flakey P4 chipsets, 3) the framebuffer thing is wack.

Can ATI really do no wrong amongst some?

Nice. So, when are we going to see a review comparing performance on nVidia+nVidia, ATi+ATi, nVidia+ATi, and ATi+nVidia? ;)

anybody notice the Bose speakers in the first diagram by ATI....the 2 speaker that supposedly gives accurate 5.1?

Nice review. I started crying half way through because it was so good. Anyway :p, maybe you guys should have tested with an x800 pro since it seems this chipset is better tuned for performance with radeons.

So wait, there's no network tests in this review? I know you said there's no southbridge LAN support but the northbridge was supposed to handle it, and there is obviously a LAN port on board (you can see it in the shot of the rear video ports), and on page 3 of the review, "but ATI reckons PCI Express will handle networking chores, including Gigabit Ethernet, just fine, thanks." So what gives?

I'm disappointed with the feature set ATI has come up with, mainly because Nvidia decided not to include soundstorm, but ATI with no LAN and crappy audio isn't really a competitor either.

Ah well, AXP 2400+ w/ 9800 pro and soundstorm is chugging along just fine.

"Notice the IGP comparison here. The Radeon IGP outperforms the Intel GMA 900 in both of the OpenGL shading tests."

Not according to the graphs... unless they are mislabeled.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/radeon-xpress200/index.x?pg=14

Note the 1019.5 score by the P4IGP in the second-last test, whereas the ATI-IGP scores less than half that.

-fyo

i just read the anandtech review and the x200 is outperforming the gma900 in almost every test, often by a huge margin. they also compare the x200 to the Ati x300 SE, which is about 30% faster in most tests.

Wouldn't it be more relevant to compare the IGP graphics to another low cost solution, such as the X300? For someone who is considering IGP, a $299 6800 probably isn't an option, but a $80 card is another thing.

I'm just through the first few lines of the first page - you must be kidding, Scott?!

The best integrated video and the first pci-e. Nice job indeed ati. The dvi port blew me away, I was not expecting that.

I couldn't be more happy to see yet another chipset maker jumping into the mix. This is a great time for amd platforms.