ATI Technologies announced its latest RADEON XPRESS 200M chipset for Intel processors that will enable affordable, yet high-performance, DirectX 9.0 class graphics on mobile computers and will offer competition to Intel’s own 915GM-series of chipsets that offer similar functionality.

ATI’s RADEON XPRESS 200M graphics and memory controller hub (GMCH) for Intel processors supports Intel Pentium M, Intel Mobile Pentium 4 and Intel Celeron M central processing units with up to 533MHz processor system bus, dual-channel DDR or DDR2 memory controller at 400MHz and 667MHz respectively, built-in RADEON X300-like graphics core supporting DirectX 9.0 capabilities. The RADEON XPRESS 200M can be paired using PCI Express x4 bus with I/O controller from ATI Technologies or ULi Electronics.

The new RADEON XPRESS 200M for Intel processors is equipped with an array of ATI’s technologies for mobile computers, including POWERPLAY 5.0 that incorporates new power management functionality such as Dynamic Lane Count Switching (DLCS), which can reduce integrated GPU power consumption by up to 30% by adjusting power on-the-fly.

While the feature-set and performance of ATI’s RADEON XPRESS 200M seems to be comparable to Intel’s 915GM-series of chipsets, the chipset received lukewarm welcome from computer builders: only 7 companies, including NEC, Asus, Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Mitac and LG, plan to utilize the core-logic. One of the possible reasons for that is the popularity of Intel Centrino brand-name among end-users. While the RADEON XPRESS 200M supports Intel Pentium M processor, notebooks using ATI’s chipset cannot be called Centrino because Intel allows to use the brand-name only for notebooks that use Intel’s processor, chipset and wireless network controllers.