AMD to intro 6Gb/s Sata III chipset in early 2010

USB 3.0 too?

AMD will roll out its next generation of desktop chipsets in January 2010, Taiwanese motherboard-maker moles have claimed.

Two chipsets are in the pipeline: 'RD890' and 'RS880D', the latter an integrated offering equipped with a 700MHz 'RV620' graphics core and AMD's UVD 2.0 video decoder unit.

Both chipsets support HyperTransport 3.0 - Socket AM3, then - and contain PCI Express 2.0 controllers for graphics: 32 lanes in the case of the RD890, ready for four x8 or two x16 slots. The RS880D has 16 lanes, to feed either a single x16 slot or a pair of x8 connectors.

Both have extra PCIe 2 feeds for other peripherals. Each can support six x1 slots, and the RD890 has scope for an additional x4 slot.

If that wasn't sufficient PCIe slottage for you, AMD's SB810 and SB850 southbridge chips add a further four lanes for a quartet of x1 connectors. Both SBs can control up to 16 USB 2.0 ports. There's no word on USB 3.0 support, but they will work to the 6Gb/s Sata III specification. They both have Gigabit Ethernet and differ only in the extent of their Raid support: 0, 1, 5 and 10 for the SB850, and 0, 1 and 10 for the SB810.

Initial RS880D and RD890 offerings will come with the SB850 - the SB810 isn't expected to debut until Q2 2010. ®

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