ATI RD500 becomes Crossfire 1600 for Intel

ATI is working hard to finish its much demonstrated RD500 chipset. It's not going to be a top notch one as it will have two x PCIe 8X only, but will likely be the first chipset from ATI that will support Crossfire and Conroe.

The chipset should be ready in a month or two. ATI recognises the importance of Conroe and wants to support Intel as much as it can. The bottom line is to sell as many dual graphic cards as it possibly can, but ATI will sure start working hard to promote its chipsets, but it first have to finish the chipset.

ATI is also working on RD600, the next generation PCIe chipset that can support PCIe 16X slots but this baby will come a little bit later.

ATI will brand RD500 as the Crossfire 1600 as it want to make people understand that it supports two times PCIe 8X slots only. It probably won't cost much so it will be an affordable Crossfire chipset supporting Intel Conroe.

Until it's out, Intel 975 and P965 are your only choice with Nvidia far away on its Intel development horizon. µ