Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1298



RS300 turned more than one head; cheap, reliable IGP performance for Intel processors. Small Form Factor PCs benifited the most from the alternative to Intel's 845G and 865G. With RS350 close to induction, today we take a look even further into the future for a glimpse at RS400 and the extremely exciting RS480.

Much like RS300, RS400 is an Intel based core logic and will still sport DX8.1 integrated graphics (Radeon 9100). Manufacturers claim the new RS400 will support the next successor to 800FSB. PCI-Express and DDR2 will also be fully supported. A-Link II appears to be a PCI-Express interconnect from the Northbridge to the Southbridge. Fortunately, we will see support for DDR and DDR2 at release.

2004 Pentium 4 Chipset Roadmap

Chipset

RS400
FSB Support
400/533/800/1000+MHz
Memory Bus Width
Dual 64-bit
Memory Type(s) Supported
DDR-400
DDR2-533/667
External Graphics Interface
1 PCI-E x16
Integrated Graphics Interface
DX8.1
Other Interfaces
A-Link II
Availability
Mid 2004

RS480 looks to become ATI's first AMD K8 core logic. The RS480 also incorporates PCI-Express, and will ship with a DX8.1 IGP solution. All sources indicate that we probably will not see a true DX9 IGP until after RS480 and RS400.

2004 Athlon 64 Chipset Roadmap

Chipset

RS480
FSB Support
1.6GHz+ HyperTransport
Memory Bus Width
N/A
Memory Type(s) Supported
N/A
External Graphics Interface
1 PCI-E x16
Integrated Graphics Interface
DX8.1
Other Interfaces
A-Link II
Availability
Q3 '04

Paired with RS480 and RS400, ATI will also unveil its newest southbridge, SB400. SB400 looks fairly comparable to south bridge solutions from VIA, SiS and NVIDIA. SB400 is compatible with RS480 and RS400. The option to go with 4 SATA devices looks like a good decision on ATI's behalf. There is no LAN support on SB400. SB400 is slated for Azalia Audio support, although we may see an implementation similar to VIA's VT8251 southbridge with both Azalia and AC'97.

2004 Southbridge Roadmap

South Bridge

SB400
Parallel ATA Channels
2 (4 devices)
Serial ATA Channels
4 (4 devices)
Raid Support
0,1, 0+1
USB 2.0 Support
8 ports
PCI Express Support
4 PCI-E x1
Audio
8ch. Azalia
6 ch. AC'97
Availability
Q3 '04

Feel free to check out our other core logic updates from VIA, SiS and Intel.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now