14 DAY TRIAL // The first 8 Series core-logic set from Advanced Micro Devices has been in the works for some time and will be the first officially introduced part of the high-end Leo platform. Not long ago, reports emerged claiming that the Sunnyvale, California-based CPU and GPU maker would formally introduce the 890GX chipset at the beginning of March. The time came and, sure enough, the company did indeed make the official announcement and gave details on the chipset's capabilities and its integrated graphics core.
One of the main reasons why this chipset was created, and why its development was accelerated so that it could be officially launched now and not in May, was its support for the upcoming AMD Phenom II X6 six-core central processing unit. The second main feature of the 890GX is its integration of the ATI Radeon HD 4290 graphics core. This graphics solution has full support for DirectX 10.1 graphics, has a clock speed of 700MHz, 40 stream processors and UVD 2.0 support.
With the integrated graphics, end-users will be able to enjoy media content in HD, as well as in 1080p Blu-ray format, including dual-screen picture-in-picture (PiP) and video encoded in MPEG2, VC-1, and H.264 formats. These capabilities don't exactly bring any groundbreaking, innovative features to motherboards, but they do raise the standard for integrated graphics in general.
In addition to having its own GPU, the 890GX chipset supports PCI Express x16 and the next-generation high-speed storage interface known as SATA 6Gbps. In addition, new motherboards based on this core-logic, AMD says, will also boast USB 3.0 connectivity, so that end-users can enjoy high transfer speeds both for internal as well as external storage.
AMD started mass-producing the chipset as early as February, so that it would be available to motherboard makers at the official launch. This core logic will supposedly be aimed at "virtually any PC budget", with the top-tier segment set to be covered by the upcoming 890FX. The first mainboards based on the 890GX are slated to start coming out in March and April.