ATI Xpress 3200 (RD580)

ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX:ATY)(NASDAQ:ATYT), has changed the rules of the motherboard industry with the introduction of its CrossFire(TM) Xpress 3200 chipset-delivering the enthusiast gaming platform of the future. Developed from the ground up for multi-GPU gaming, the CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset enables the world's fastest gaming performance, advanced overclocking capabilities and bedrock stability available in an AMD-based PC motherboard today.

The first chipset to unleash true, unrestricted dual x16 PCI Express(R) performance, CrossFire Xpress 3200's architecture enables exceptionally advanced game play. Whether you're gaming with two top-of-the-line ATI Radeon(R) graphics cards such as the Radeon(R) X1900 XTX or two of ATI's mainstream graphics cards like the Radeon(R) X1600, the CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset is engineered to deliver the ultimate blistering acceleration and maximum ease of use in a multi-GPU gaming platform.

The press release in its entirety can be viewed here. Overall, the ATI Xpress 3200 (RD580) Chipset adjusts many of the problems plauged by previous ATI Xpress Chipsets, and it also brings fourth dual PCI Express x16 slots in CrossFire mode. At this time, no Intel version of the Xpress 3200 is available. Some of the initial motherboards to use the new ATI Xpress 3200 RD580 Chipset is the Abit AT8 32X, ASUS A8R32-MVP DELUXE, DFI LANPARTY UT CFX320-DR, PC Partner RD580AK9-A75D, and Sapphire PC-A9RD580Adv. We expect to start receiving samples of these new RD580-based motherboards at any time now. As of this news post, we still have yet to hear any official word from our ATI sources on how the Xpress 3200 RD580 may fair under Linux, but we will see for ourselves soon at Phoronix. Hopefully all is well with the ATI CrossFire RD580 and GNU/Linux, but we will keep Phoronix updated with the latest information in regards to this matter as soon as its received. Of course, no Linux support has yet been appended for CrossFire Technology.