radeon xpress

[w00t]

i am guessing this is a chipset?what sockets are it for?does it have pci express?faster than nf4 boards?tell me anything you know and pics

 

[kogase]

What are you gonna do if I don't?

 

[w00t]

i am gonna go cry because i am emo........jk. frankly i dont give a sh!t because some other person is gonna tell me....

 

[gobucks]

It's a chipset for upcoming PCIe AMD64 platform. It's got potential with decent speed and good overclocking, and its integrated video is decent (X300 caliber, plus you can use it in conjunction with descrete graphics for multiple monitor support, which is kinda cool), but that's about it. It's feature set is pretty sparse compared to the competition - no integrated LAN, no hardware firewall, no SATA-II or NCQ, no HD-Audio, etc. Also, while the overclocking and speed are decent, but will likely be overshadowed by newer nforce4 offerings, like the new gigabyte board, which has great performance and an overclocking potential of 100% (200MHz to 400MHz), as well as a good feature set. From the looks of it, the chipset will be very popular in the OEM/low end integrated graphics market, but not too big with high end users. Then again, if ATI can beef up their southbridge with some features nforce4 has, it might just change that, but that won't happen for at least 6 months. Overall, I think the chipset shows promise that the dark days of chipset making are behind ATI, but they are not quite ready for the spotlight just yet.

 

[w00t]

why would someone want intergrated grahics. why do they put intergrated grahics when there is a pci-e slot. so pretty much what u are saying is the nf4 is better and ati's is crappy for now but maybe become a hit one day?

 

[gobucks]

well, what if the graphics situation were pretty pathetic, and not worth your money. For example, before this generation, there were no really good midrange solutions available. if you were looking in the $200-250 range, you'd either have to spend $190 or so for a 9600XT or 5700 Ultra, neither of which was very good, or shell out more for a 9800 Pro or something decent. If you have integrated video, you can basically just wait till something good got down to the price range you were looking for. It's kind of like integrated audio. No, it's not great, but it'll hold down the fort while you wait for something you really like comes out. Also, some people don't game, so integrated graphics is sufficient for their office apps and such. As someone co-opping in tech support for a large company, I can say that if descrete graphics is not needed, (and it's not for office stuff), then it makes PC maintenance about a million times easier if you just avoid it and go with integrated. When lonhorn's new visual engine (Aero glass, I believe) is released in 2006, and full DX9 or DX10 is a requirement, those people will not have to buy a whole new mobo, which means they can have a low cost solution without sacrificing upgradeability, as has often been the case in the past, where Intel's integrated graphics solutions lacked AGP slots. From what I've gathered, PCIe is pretty simple and cheap to implement, and I think that the graphics companies are pushing for just about all mobo makers to keep PCIe x16 slots in their designs, in hopes that people will upgrade down the road. This is not exactly something new; after all, nForce2 had an integrated GF MX200 in it, I believe, and still had an AGP slot.

 

[NicColt]

>what u are saying is the nf4 is better

we all have to wait for numbers.

>It's feature set is pretty sparse compared to the competition

because we only see reference boards, when manufacturer's put em out the'll be loaded.

 

[w00t]

should i wait for that instead of the nforce 4, i am going to get an ATI card probably that new one that is better than the x800pro has 16pipe lines and shit.will i be able to overclock it like the x800pro vivo to x800xt but faster.because i dont want to pay 700 dollars on a asus x800xt.i just wish they made x800pro for pci-e than i would get it and flash to xt. it would be my 1st overclock though.if you know what i should do tell me. ty

 

[gobucks]

I really doubt that the Radeon Xpress chipset will be better than the nforce4. If you look at anandtech's review of the Gigabyte nForce4 Ultra, you'll see that it's gonna be a pretty tough competitor, and offerings from Asus and MSI look to be about the same. The feature set on these boards is staggering - Dual GB Ethernet, 4 SATA + 4 SATA-II, SLI (some models), 2-3 PCIe x1, great overclocking tools (Gigabyte can go from 200MHz core to 400MHz core, as opposed to Radeon Xpress's 350MHz max for the time being), hardware firewall, etc. Then you look at the performance, and it's a full 5% faster than the reference nforce4 board, which was still able to keep pace with the Xpress 200. ATI can't match the features without redesigning the board. Things like hardware firewall, SLI, and SATA-II cannot be added by board partners, so ATI is going to have to design a new chipset, or at least a southbridge for the firewall and SATA-II, which won't happen for at least 6 months. Besides, if you look at the boards that have been announced with the Xpress 200, there is really only one, and it's a crappy micro-ATX board from MSI with no PCIe x1 slots at all, so basically you would be just paying an waiting for a chipset who's only difference between an old one is the PCIe x16 slot, which on the high end just makes $400-500 cards cost $500-600 due to lack of supply.

If you are looking for a descrete motherboard solution to handle a high end video card, then you're gonna want to look at NF4, not Xpress 200. The only thing it can do better than the nforce4 is in having integrated graphics, which is obviously not an issue for you, since you're looking at X800 series cards. An Xpress 200 chipset is not going to make your ATI card run better, either.