AMD RS880 chipset will have a new integrated graphics processor

A tough competitor to Nvidia’s Ion platform

AMD RS880 with integrated graphics processor will be launched in August

 The AMD 800 chipset series is a set of chipsets to be developed by AMD which are scheduled to be released in 2009. The chipset series was revealed long ago during the AMD Financial Analyst Day held in 2007. This new series of chipset will be available for desktops, notebooks, and servers with support for a large number of processors including future Opteron, Phenom, Athlon (X2, X3, and X4)
and Turion Ultra processors. The RS880, a new low-end IGP chipset that will arrive in Q3 2009 will be made on a 55nm process by TSMC and will be bundled with SB710 or SB800 southbridge chipsets. The "RS" prefix for AMD GPG chipsets mark the presence of integrated graphics.

The integrated graphics processor will be DirectX 10.1 compatible. Specifications-wise it is identical to the RS780 as both sport 40 stream processors, 8 texture address and 4 texture filtering units, though the core speed on the RS880 is expected to be significantly higher. It also includes support for Universal Video Decoder 2 (UVD-2), 100% hardware acceleration for VC-1, H.264 and MPEG-2 bitstream decoding. Also provided is video dynamic-contrast. The IGP supports HDMI with audio routing and DisplayPort.

The RS880 chipset with IGP is all set to give tough competition to Nvidia’s Ion platform which is based on Nvidia GeForce 9400M single-chip core-logic. The price of Nvidia Ion is between $35 to $40 which when paired with the Intel Atom Processor (it costs $45) raises the cost of the package to the $80 mark. In case one goes for an Intel Atom-Nvidia Ion bundle, which offers superior performance then one would have to pay about 3 times more compared to Intel’s default Atom only (the Atom chip and compatible core-logic set is available for $25).

So, AMD has to take care of the pricing in order to compete in the market. Although the RS880 with its IGP based on ATi Radeon HD4200 graphics core that is 15 percent faster than anything on the market right now, seems to be a formidable foe, nothing can be said until AMD officially releases the RS880 later in August this year.