As you see, the RADEON 9100 IGP profits but little from the upgrade. The weakness of the memory controller integrated into this chipset makes it perform slower than Intel’s chipsets in games when the external AGP 8x card is used.

Conclusion

The results of our today’s tests suggest that the current ATI Technologies’ attempt to enter the integrated chipset market has a chance to become a lucky one. The new chipset, RADEON 9100 IGP, features a high-quality integrated graphics core, which provides good compatibility with current games and high performance (for its class). The performance is enough for you to play comfortably a 3D game of the previous generation in resolutions up to 1024x768. Thus, the ATI RADEON 9100 IGP suits well as a foundation of an inexpensive system.

As for the prospect of a future upgrade, there may be problems. Although the RADEON 9100 IGP supports the newest Socket478 processors and features an external AGP 8x port, its performance after installation of an external graphics card can hardly be called satisfactory. Unfortunately, the memory controller that resides in the RADEON 9100 IGP is slow and badly-compatible with DDR400 SDRAM. As a result, RADEON 9100 IGP-based mainboards fall behind analogous products that are based on competitor chipsets.

Summing it up, I’d say that this chipset should become popular exactly as an integrated solution, considering the low price of the mainboards based on it. It will sure find its way into small form-factor PCs and inexpensive systems. At the same time, ATI Technologies has a long time yet to become a really successful chipset maker. If it were not for the graphics core, the ATI RADEON 9100 IGP wouldn’t grab any interest at all. The ATI engineering team has to learn yet how to develop and optimize memory controllers and improve South Bridges. I hope the next chipset from this manufacturer will be higher-performing and also hope that it will arrive in the near future rather than in a year or two.