VIA and ATI released the companies' latest chipset solutions supporting the transition to socket AM2 by AMD, informs Digital Silence.

ATI Technologies has released its new chipsets - CrossFireT Xpress 3200 and the ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 series. Both chipsets feature ATI's latest south bridge technology in order to be perfectly compatible with socket AM2.

The manufacturer said that CrossFire Xpress 3200, already available, "is a top-performing enthusiast chipset", and the Radeon Xpress 1100, a chipset developed also for Windows Vista, will be ATI's fastest integrated graphics ever.

The latest CrossFire Xpress 3200 and Radeon Xpress 1100 series of chipsets for socket AM2 from AMD will be available from ATI partners including ASUS, AsRock, Abit, AOpen, DFI, ECS, Epox, Jetway, and MSI.

In order to lodge the latest platform features and rising system bandwidth requirements, AMD's transition to socket AM2 will enable a new wave of innovation on AMD64 based systems featuring AMD Virtualization and high-performance DDR2 memory.

Consequently, VIA announced that the company will offer a wide range of chipset solutions perfectly compatible with socket AM2 platforms, including the VIA K8M890, just right for Windows Vista systems, and the VIA K8T900 performance chipset with dual X8 PCI Express support.

"By enabling a top-to-bottom transition of our AMD Athlon 64 FX, AMD Athlon 64 X2, AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Sempron product lines around socket AM2 and by working jointly with allies like VIA, we can maintain our competitive edge through technology leadership and the benefits delivered to customers," said Bob Brewer, corporate vice president, Desktop Division, AMD.

"With VIA's full range of chipsets compatible with socket AM2 platforms, we feel very confident we can offer customer-focused solutions through open industry standards and leading-edge technologies."

Optimized for a complete range of AMD Opteron, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, and Sempron processors, VIA K8 Series chipsets include VIA K8T900 and K8T890 solutions, as well as the VIA K8M890 integrated graphics chipset.