First International Computer today issued a press-release concerning the launch of its ATI RADEON 9100 IGP-based mainboard. The company did not say the product was available by press time or would be available in a short time, but once again indicated the details of this platform.

The official name of the product we told you about several months ago will be FIC P4M-RS300, not VT35, as indicated some time back. The main features of the mainboard have remained practically the same since the last report with two significant exceptions: the I/O controller will be changed to ATI IXP150 from IXP200, as the Markham, Ontario-based company presumably has had some problems with deliveries of the more advanced South Bridge; FIC will not pack any overclocking features to its P4M-RS300, as we can realize from the most-recent specs.

FIC also did not disclose pricing details of its new part.

Adopting the RADEON 9100 IGP MCH and IXP150 ICH, the FIC P4M-RS300 Socket 478 processors with 400/533/800MHz Quad Pumped Bus, features 2 DIMM slots for up to 2GB of PC2100/PC2700/3200 memory (dual-channel memory bus support: memory modules used should be identical and installed in pairs), an AGP 8x, 3 PCI slots, integrated RADEON 9200-like architecture, 2-channel ATA-33/66/100, 10/100Mb/s Ethernet controller from Realtek, 6-channel AC'97 audio solution from Realtek, 6 USB 2.0 ports, 2 FireWire ports and so on. FIC NOVUS feature-set for the product is limited to BIOS Guardian and HotKey technologies.

The most interesting capability of this ATI RADEON 9100 IGP platform is support for up to three displays when using an AGP graphics card powered by ATI’s RADEON-series GPU. This feature could be very interesting for those, who do not require any powerful 3D graphics, such as users in the financial community, but are interested in using more than two displays at the same time. A chipset with integrated graphics core can hardly bring fast 3D, but can be very cost-effective for multi-monitor configurations.

So far PC design wins were announced neither for RADEON 9100 IGP, nor for FIC P4M-RS300.