AMD Releases 790GX Chipset For Performance PCs

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Advanced Micro Devices lifted the curtains on its 790GX desktop chipset Wednesday, bringing to market motherboard graphics the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker is positioning against Nvidia's nForce 750 and Intel's P45 products.

The 790GX targets a "performance" class of gamers and multimedia users a notch below the hardcore hardware tweakers who formed the audience for the 790FX chipset released last November as the high-end platform in the product rollout formerly code named Spider. AMD has since rebranded the Spider family of 7-Series chipsets supporting triple-core and quad-core Phenom processors as part of its Game!, Live! and Business Class hardware platform initiatives, which also include Nvidia chipset options in some instances.

The new platform is an AMD Game! product and adds new overclocking capabilities to the chip maker's OverDrive system-boosting application. These include what AMD calls Advanced Clock Calibration, providing a more direct link between the CPU and the new SB750 Southbridge that comes with 790GX boards, as well as a "more sensible" array of profile settings for revving system performance up or down depending on the task at hand.

"OverDrive always had profile settings, but this is the first time it really makes sense to have a profile for gaming and one for other activities like video watching," said Adam Kozak, chipset product manager at AMD. The chip maker has "changed the factory settings on overclocking so they're much more aggressive" -- to the tune of a 100 to 400MHz boost to clock frequency, according to Kozak.

"Now that we're one company with the CPU team, we've been able to work at a very low level with them and figured out ways to overclock the CPU," he said.

AMD is pitching the 790GX as both a performance product and, packaged with a Phenom, as a "mainstream" system-in-a-box, which seems a bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it too. But Kozak argued that the scalability of graphics performance on the 790GX, the ability to simply flip a switch between overclocking and underclocking to save 12W or so in power consumption, and the prices anticipated for 790GX-Phenom packages makes the case for the new platform being several things at once.

A barebones 790GX package, featuring a Gigabyte board priced at about $150 and a $205 2.5GHz quad-core Phenom X4 9850, would cost roughly $355, according to the chip maker. AMD compares that figure to mid-July pricing on Newegg.com that put the cost of a Gigabyte P45 and 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 at $445.

Next: The Price Range For New 790GX Boards

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