X-bit labs

ATI Renames Outdated Core-Logic for CrossFire Systems.

Category: Chipsets

by Anton Shilov

[ 04/11/2006 | 03:37 PM ]

In a bid to simplify the naming scheme of its chipsets, ATI Technologies has asked its partners to call its previous-generation core-logic sets for multi-GPU platforms as CrossFire Xpress 1600.

Earlier the chipsets that the enthusiast community usually refers to as RD480 and RD400 were officially named as the Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition for AMD or Intel processors respectively. But after the new CrossFire Xpress 3200 (RD580) saw the light of the day, the former naming scheme might mislead customers, which is why the company decided to call the previous-generation product with the CrossFire Xpress 1600 brand-name.

The new name not only emphasizes that the core-logic is intended for multi-GPU systems and that it has 16 PCI Express lanes, the main feature that distinguishes it from the CrossFire Xpress 3200 that has 32 lanes and provides higher performance in bandwidth-demanding multi-GPU cases.

However, the naming scheme of ATI does not reflect input and output capabilities of south-bridges, which may still confuse some customers, as different partners of ATI use different I/O controllers along with the company’s north-bridges (RD400, RD480, RD580, etc) and offer different functionality for similar products.