FIC is presently ATI’s primary mainboard partner. The company was the first to introduce the RADEON IGP320 based Socket A mainboard for AMD Athlon/Duron processors earlier this year and now they are the first to demonstrate their VT31 RADEON IGP340 powered device for Socket 478 Intel Pentium 4 processors at Comdex Fall 2002.

VT31 has the following specifications:

• Supports Socket 478 Pentium 4 / Celeron processors with 400/533MHz FSB;
• ATI RADEON IGP340 North-Bridge and VIA 686b I/O controller;
• Integrated RADEON 7000 graphics core;
• Dual display support;
• 2 DIMM slots for PC1600 or PC2100 DDR-SDRAM memory;
• 3 PCI slots and 1 AGP 4x slot;
• 2-channel ATA-100/66/33 integrated controller;
• USB ports;
• 10/100Mbit/s Ethernet adapter from Realtek;
• AC’97 audio solution from Cmedia;
• mATX Form Factor.

I have no idea when the VT31 will reach the market, since ATI is not very active on this field and their primary goal is integrated mobile solutions. Frankly speaking, I do not think that the RADEON IGP340 powered products may become successful on the retail market these days, as there are a lot of more advanced products available. Therefore, taking into account dual-display support and relatively low price, the VT31 has all the chances to reach not expensive office PCs where integrated graphics with multi-display capabilities and quality software support will be very popular.