AMD/ATI already disappointed us with another R600 delay, but at least they finally get to launch the 690-series motherboard chipset. Although ready to be launched in January, the RS690 chipset was delayed in ATI's well-known style and will officially be launched tomorrow. There are two variants for different consumer categories: the RS690-based mainstream AMD 690G with integrated ATI Radeon X1250 graphics, and the RS690C-based value AMD 690V with integrated ATI Radeon X1200 graphics.

Since these are value and mainstream solutions, the ATI Radeon X1250 and X1200 graphics can't really deliver the needed processing power for today's applications and games. The cores are identical, in terms of 3D capabilities and are based on the previous X700-series. The ATI Radeon X1200-family IGP integrates only two pixel-pipelines and two vertex-shaders, while the GPU-core is clocked at 400 MHz. However, AMD/ATI claims that overall gaming performance with the ATI Radeon X1200-family IGP is better than NVIDIA and Intel offerings. With an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ and 2GB of DDR2-667 memory, users could get decent frame-rates of 30-35-fps in Half Life 2 and 35-40-fps in Far Cry. AMD mentioned that the preliminary tests were conducted with a screen-resolution of 1024x768, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering disabled.

The ATI Radeon X1200 powered AMD 690V only supports D-Sub VGA and TV-output connectors. Extending the video capabilities to meet the new HD requirements, the 690G chipset with ATI Radeon X1250 graphics integrates native DVI and HDMI output connectors with support for HDCP.

AMD further claims that the 690 chipset is capable of high-quality DVD playback, scoring 80 marks in Silicon Optix’s HQV DVD-benchmark. Similar NVIDIA GeForce 7050 and nForce 630a configurations scored 20 points while Intel’s G965 scored 48 points.

Motherboard makers, including Albatron, ASUS, Bisotar, ECS, Epox, FoxConn, Gigabyte, Jetway, MSI, Sapphire and Shuttle have all announced their new line-ups of 690-based motherboards.