14 DAY TRIAL // Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices is expected to update its desktop computer platform with the release of the highly anticipated RD890 chipset, accompanied by the southbridge chip SB850. The details on these two products have been scarce but, thanks to a recently leaked roadmap of AMD's future products, we now have a more general idea of what to expect from the upcoming platform, which is slated to become available sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. Additionally, the leaked roadmap also details some of AMD's other future products, including the 785G chipset, a refresh to the current 780G.
According to a recent news-article on the English version of Expreview.com, Intel's main competitor in the market of x86 processors and computer platforms will soon be updating its product portfolio with the addition of the highly anticipated RD890 northbridge and the SB850 southbridge. The roadmap details some of the technical specifications of the upcoming southbridge, which will include support for the next-generation SATA 3 6GB/s interface, RAID 5 and 14 USB ports. In addition, the RS880D chipset will include the graphics capabilities of the Radeon HD 3400, featuring a core speed of 700Mhz, support for DirectX 10.1, UVD2.0 and Hybrid CrossFireX.
Before the release of this high-performance product, AMD will announce the new AMD 785G mainstream chipset, the last of the company's 7-series IGP chipsets. This is a product that shares its specifications with the current 780G northbridge, offering a 500MHz core speed, DX10, UVD, HDMI and PCIe Express 2.0 support. However, the 785G will introduce the support for DirectX 10.1 and UVD2.0, when it will launch at the beginning of the third quarter.
These new products will join AMD's current lineup and coexist all through the end of this year and the beginning of 2010. They will also come as a much awaited addition to AMD's latest Phenom II processors leveraging the company's first 45nm process technology.