14 DAY TRIAL // More details about AMD?s upcoming RD790 chipset started to emerge on various websites this week. As some of you know, the RD790 is the successor to AMD?s previous 580X chipset (also known as CrossFire Xpress 3200). RD790 will only have a new northbridge since it will be paired with the existing SB600 southbridge.
The first news related to RD790 is that AMD has decided to install 42 PCI Express lanes. Thirty-two of them are available to two PCIE x16 slots for CrossFire operation and according to AMD, will be compatible with PCIE 2.0 standard.
Ten PCIE lanes will remain for the rest of PCIE x1, x2, x4 slots and integrated PCIe devices but only 6 of them will be used for the PCIE bridges while the remaining 4 will interconnect the southbridge. RD790 has also been tuned to support HyperTransport 3.0 and Socket AM2+. AMD has already started to ship reference boards to manufacturers. There are two boards available: Mako and Wahoo. Mako used the AM2/AM2+ socket while Wahoo will be AMD?s first 4x4 platform. Mako will use two full-speed PCIe x16 slots, one physical PCIe x16 slot (x4 electrically), one physical PCIe x4(2 lanes shared with Gigabit Ethernet and SATA) and one PCI slot.
Wahoo is the new 4x4 which will support 1207+ CPUs. Wahoo will feature a slightly different PCIe lane configuration with one full-speed PCIe x16 slot while the secondary slot can work in x8 or x16 mode. The third physical PCIe x16 will also work in x8 mode. Lastly, the motherboard will include one PCIe x1 and one PCI slot.