Introduction

Ask any enthusiast which AMD chipset is best, and chances are nine out of ten of them will answer in favor of NVIDIA’s nForce4 platform. Ever since it was first announced, NVIDIA’s nForce4 chipset has been a favorite among consumers. NVIDIA created a lot of buzz just before the chipset’s retail debut, touting features like SLI, 3Gbps Serial ATA support with native command queuing and RAID Morphing, Gigabit Ethernet networking with an enhanced hardware-based firewall, and even added support for up to 10 USB 2.0 ports.

With all these flashy new features, many enthusiasts forgot about alternative offerings from ATI and VIA -- once the first wave of retail motherboards based on the nForce4 chipset hit store shelves, they were quickly picked up, catapulting NVIDIA’s market share to the favorable position it enjoys today.

But NVIDIA isn’t the only player in the AMD chipset business that’s been gaining share lately. Archrival ATI has been too. In fact, ATI’s chipset division has been doing extraordinarily well lately. At the end of Q3, ATI’s desktop integrated business revenues quadrupled year-over-year. This was due in large part thanks to surging sales of their XPRESS 200 chipset for both AMD and Intel platforms, which picked up design wins with a number of OEMs and system integrators. Tier One motherboard manufacturers such as MSI and Gigabyte have signed on as well.

Sapphire PURE Innovation PI-A9RX480 board

Heatsinks on RX480 NB and VRM components

The XPRESS 200 chipset has proven popular with these manufacturers on the AMD platform in large part due to the XPRESS 200’s unique position as the only chipset on the market to offer an integrated graphics core. Neither NVIDIA or VIA have delivered an integrated solution for the AMD platform, giving ATI a distinct advantage which they’ve exploited over the past few months – NVIDIA’s C51 chipset is expected to finally integrate an as yet unannounced graphics core (it’s rumored to be a variant of the GeForce 6200 TC) onto the nForce4 platform, but the chipset hasn’t officially launched yet and isn’t expected to debut until the end of this month, while VIA’s plans for an integrated chipset are even further off.

Flashy white PCB

See the smaller heatsinks just next to the RX480 NB?

Until then, ATI’s XPRESS 200 chipset will continue to flourish. PC manufacturers have been using XPRESS 200 in their value offerings, which are typically paired with Sempron and budget Athlon 64 CPUs. These $500 PCs pack a pretty good punch, especially in comparison to equivalent Intel-based offerings, thanks in large part due to their superior DX9 graphics and the strength of the CPU.

Now Sapphire is bringing their own XPRESS 200 motherboard to market, and they’re targeting a totally different segment: hardware enthusiasts.