RS482 versus RS480

The first question that many of you may have is why we are testing the ATI RS482, instead of the RS480, against the NVIDIA 6100? The RS480 and the RS482 are the same chipset, with the RS482 having undergone a die shrink. We believed that the Grouper was still equipped with the RS480 chipset, when in fact, the Reference Board had the .11 process RS482 when we checked under the heatsink.

Whether RS482 or RS480, the performance should be essentially the same according to ATI. The RS480 is built on a .13 micron process, and the RS482 is a die-shrink to .11 micron. The chipsets are otherwise identical, except that ATI did make the move to a flip chip design in RS482. Whether it is a RS480 core or RS482 core, ATI calls the chipset Radeon Xpress 200. You will never hear ATI refer to the RS482 or RS480 in official documents, but we find the internal names to be useful for explaining what has and hasn't changed in the chipsets.

The die-shrink theoretically reduces costs, which was a primary motivation for the move to .11. The RS482 is the currently-shipping ATI integrated Graphics solution for AMD, and has replaced the RS480 in AMD integrated graphics from ATI.

The RS482 is the current ATI mainstream integrated graphics chipset, which is officially called Radeon Xpress 200. This would make the new NVIDIA 6100 the comparable chipset to RS482. NVIDIA also announced the higher-clocked GeForce 6150 chipset, which will be released in coming weeks. As you have seen in our past roadmaps, ATI will also be releasing a higher-performing integrated graphics solution in the future called RS485. It appears that this may be a higher-clocked version of RS482, which would make it a logical competitor to the upcoming NVIDIA 6150.

The AMD Integrated Graphics market is the exact opposite of what we have recently seen in discrete graphics. Where NVIDIA had a several-month lead over ATI with the 7800 GTX, ATI introduced RS480 almost a year ago. In that market, it has taken NVIDIA almost a year to respond with the GeForce 6100 Integrated Graphics.

Index Test Setup
Comments Locked

36 Comments

View All Comments

  • Tujan - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link

    But a ''ATI has had its integrated graphics chipsets on the market for over a year"?

    There are only limited ATI Intel 915 775 based Intel graphics chipsets.Nothing for the Dual-Core Intel based chipsets.

    The ATI chipsets for the AMD platform,are not so numerous as well. Of wich ATX does not enter the fray.

    Asus has an Intel ATI 775 chipset.Wich is more or less a 915 equivalent.While the war horse from MSI does the AMD side of things.

    Maybe,just maybe there is some OEM action wich nobody can see,nor tell of.For example,a large order from a manufacturer HP,Dell etc having been used. Then if Anantech where to resort to taking interest in such obscure OEM scews they would be back to benching HP vrs Dell vrs Emachine etc.

    I know your just wanting my wormy head to pop up.Like bait.For what bird,dont know right now.

    Have to see about the latest ATI retail chipsets when they come out.They win on AMD on the count of that AMD architecture.Sure they are better graphics than the last generation used on computers PCI and AGP slots. And I cant complain about somebody taking anything but the latest technology. 915/775.

    Dont see anything in the retail right now.For ATI.The Saphire board still does not light a search from a retail since a month later now.

    Somebody trying to bend my bugle ?

  • DigitalFreak - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link

    My head hurts from trying to read that... :-)
  • johnsonx - Friday, October 7, 2005 - link

    yeah, ditto that... ouch
  • Aquila76 - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    I'm looking for an all-in-one board for a dual-boot personal web server/Old-skool gaming box, and this helped a lot. I'll probably go for the 6100 based board, as my main rig is an nForce4 and I'll keep parts 'all in the family'.

    One more thing (off topic): If I see that 64 second film contest 'waitlessness' guy floating on my screen one more time, I'm going to find where he lives and kill his family in front of him. That has got to be the single most annoying ad EVER. Who is the ad wizard who decided: "Yeah! Let's float our add across the ENTIRE SCREEN! That'll get noticed!"? DIAF, you rat-bastard!
  • knisch - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    I know this seems stupid but I really want a matx board that performs at nForce4 Ultra levels w/ sata 300 and all that jazz. Is the 6100 that board? If I throw a GeForce 6800 in that thing can I expect to see the same performance as on a nForce4 Ultra?

    If so this would be a great way to get into 939 for me. I can live with games on my socket A for a while and use the integrated graphics until I have enough dough for a nice pci-e video card.
  • johnsonx - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    This is such a board, though perhaps you would be better to wait for a board with the 430 Southbridge, rather than the 410 as this one has. That one gets you 4 SATA-300 ports rather than 2, more RAID levels, and Gigabit ethernet.

    Like this one:

    http://www.foxconnchannel.com/products_motherboard...">

    This also has the higher-clocked 6150 GFX... I dunno if you can actually buy this anywhere yet, but surely it will be available soon.

    Foxconn does also have some MicroATX regular NForce4 boards, but none with SATA-300.
  • knisch - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    Thanks. I think I will be making a purchase as soon as a decent 430 based board comes out.
  • johnsonx - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    Not sure why the link disappeared there... let's try again:

    http://www.foxconnchannel.com/products_motherboard...">http://www.foxconnchannel.com/products_motherboard...


  • HarbingerM - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    The ATI board can very alot if it is useing a mix of side port and Hypermemory. The review does not say which. I notic alot of the ati board do not have any side port but the jetway a210gdms-pro
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82...
    has 32M. It wil effect the test and senice most board do not have this feature it be nice to see the test with side port on and with it off. That will help to compare but right now the 6100 has the lower price :-). But if the side port helps to lower cpu and system memory overhead it might be worth it.
  • Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 6, 2005 - link

    There is no sideport memory on the Grouper board. The earlier RS480 Reference for Integrated Graphics did have 16MB of sideport memory, but Grouper is a later board without sideport memory - UMA only.

    As stated in the launch review and nVidia press kits, the GeForce 61xx will ONLY support UMA or shared memory. It will NOT support dedicated memory.

    We examined the effect of sideport memory in the RS480 launch, and Anand reported the small impact of sideport memory on performance. You can review those results at http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?....

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now