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ATI RD580: Dual x16 Crossfire Preview

 by Wesley Fink on November 16, 2005 3:00 AM EST
52 Comments | Add A Comment
52 Comments

ATI RD580

ATI's AMD Athlon64 chipsets began with a bang almost a year ago with the "Bullhead" Reference Board. In our review of the first Radeon Xpress 200 Reference board, ATI was clearly aiming for the AMD Enthusiast. This continued with the all-white "Grouper" this past July, and the black "Halibut" which was reviewed as the Crossfire AMD in late September. Despite three generations of capable Enthusiast chipsets based on the Radeon Xpress 200 core, we only began seeing ATI AMD chipsets used in Enthusiast motherboards with the launch of Crossfire. The first ATI enthusiast board was the DFI LANParty UT RDX300 reviewed less than a month ago. Now we are finally seeing Tier 1 manufacturers like Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte with ATI Crossfire AMD boards starting to ship.


Click to enlarge.

The Manta Reference board is a distinctive clear blue with Red slots and peripheral connectors. ATI seems to have no lack of Fish names or unique board color schemes, so Manta carries on a tradition that could soon stock an aquarium. Some love the fish internal development names, some hate them, but they are definitely unique.

When we recently reviewed the nVidia Dual x16 board we saw a dual chip setup with PCIe channels split between two multipurpose chips.

The nVidia dual x16 design provides one x16 PCIe off the "north bridge" or SPP and one x16 PCIe off the "south bridge" or MCP. On the AMD side the North chip is the MCP51 which communicates with the CK8 south chip over 16-bit HTT connections. The Intel dual x16 uses the same CK08 SLI south bridge as the AMD chipset, but the North chip is C19. C19 forces communications between the North and South chips to 8-bits.

The ATI RD580 also uses a North Bridge/South Bridge configuration, but all PCIe channels reside in the North Bridge and both PCIe x16 slots are driven by the North Bridge Chip. The new RD580 north supports 44 lanes and can be combined with any of the south bridges than can be used with the Rx480 chipset. This includes the ATI SB450, the revised pin-out SB460, the upcoming SB600 with SATA2 and revised USB, and the ULi 1573/1575.

ATI SB460

While ATI has used the current SB450 South Bridge in the Manta we evaluated, we expect the shipping Manta Reference Board will use the new SB460. SB460 is identical in function to SB450, with the same fast feature performance, but limited USB and no SATA2 or NCQ. It is important because it is pin-compatible with the upcoming SB600. This means boards designed with SB460 will be able to drop in SB600, with revised USB, SATA2, and NCQ as soon as this new South Bridge is available - possibly as early as January. Manufacturers can also combine the RD580 Dual x16 North Bridge with the ULi M1573, or more likely the ULi M1575, which supports SATA2, NCQ and competitive USB.

HD Audio

ULi was actually the first to annonce HD Audio on the AMD chipset in April of 2004. However, ATI was the first major manufacturer to bring High Quality HD audio to their AMD product line with the introduction of the SB450 South Bridge for the Xpress 200 chipset in the late 2004. HD support continued with the Crossfire AMD chipset. This advantage continues with RD580, which features the Realtek ALC882D HD audio codec on the Reference board.

Index Overclocking and Integrated Graphics
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  • michal1980 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    ati has been late for 2 years now. the 6800gt vs the 8xx series, the 6800 series out first.
    with the 7800 series they got killed.

    the promised crossfire last year... were only starting to see it work.. on boards that cost 2x that of nivdia entry level sli (they said theres would be cheaper) the said the x18xx series would be out months ago... well about 6 months later and ur finally starting to see the 1800xt..

    there crossifre boards are still running with ethier the amputated southbridge, or a uli southbridge.

    ati has lately given alot of promises, but not alot to play with.

    oh and the big news that the 1800xt in cross fire can beat the 7800gtx(256) in crossfire. NO DUH. i mean it beats the 7800gtx in a single card test, so why would 2 magically be slower.


    plus why are they so dumb. isn't there next grahpics card core the 580? now there next motherboard is a 580? WOW talk about confusion... or maybe they've lost there minds and the whole time we thought the 580 was the next gen card, but in fact its just another motherboards.

    WOW ati... i owned your stuff, but right now your on the suckage path

    a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

    i can play with 7800gtx sli, or gtx512 sli. i can play with a 32lane motherboard (a8n32)...

    i can only dream of ati xfire

  • MDme - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    I think the article was meant to show that ATI still has a fighting chance considering that the X1800XT exceeds the 7800GTX in ALL benchmarks (including nVidia strongholds like doom3 and quake4). Obviously it will also win in the SLI/CF tests. I think this is really quite some news in the ultra-highend segment where most enthusiasts play.

    It also gives us the question of will the X1800XT PE beat the 7800GTX 512, head to head.

    Now, if only ATI can actually get the products to the market before nVidia comes up with something faster.

    Competition is good. If not for competition, we will still be typing on our AMD K6-III 700MHz with 512MB SDRAM and a GF2 with 64 mb VRAM. :)

  • Megatomic - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    Wesley, do you know if ATI is planning to release an analogue to the NF4 Ultra, i.e. a high performance motherboard with only one slot for PCI-e graphics cards?

  • Wesley Fink - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    The Sapphire "Grouper" we reviewed is on sale in Europe, buit it never made it to the US. It is also very expensive - more expensive than the Asus Crossfire whose review will post early next week. We are told there will likley be a couple of more "Grouper" boards, but we haven't seen them yet. MSI will release a full range of Crossfire chipset boards from full blown to basic - but we do not know yet which boards will reach the US and European markets.

  • Megatomic - Thursday, November 17, 2005 - link

    Well, I'd dearly love to see a highend RS580 mobo. I might even go for an RS480 if it ever gets paired with SB600.

  • tuteja1986 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    I think ATI will take lead next year... This year was totally bad for them! just like NVIDIA had a bad year with Geforce 5800U.. Anyways ATI is good position for the future and we should see some great competition.

  • Jedi2155 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    If it can beat the 7800 GTX in all tests then it certainly peaks my interest in the duo. Although if this is what they can do with their *failed* (my opinion) R520...just imagine the R580 :O.

  • Cygni - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    ATI just seems a little late to the party with each of their releases, and then once finally officially launched, even later to actually get to market.

    I wish em the best, but i dont even think the (possible) overclocking abilities and x16 Crossfire option will truly get people up to buy the board unless it dips into the $100 range that the SLI boards are now sitting in.

  • n7 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    Hawt!

    The more competition, the better.

    Also, i really do think that it's only a matter of time before the ATi chipset is superior to nVidia's offerings.

    Now we just have to wait, something no one likes to do...

  • Calin - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link

    because the nVidia will develop new things for themselves. nVidia won't stay idle when ATI chipsets (graphic or otherwise) eat at their performance advantage
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