This new chip is codenamed MCP78 and will arrive for the AMD platform in October:
Following acquisition of ATI Technologies by AMD, it was widely expected that Nvidia would refocus its chipset business on the market of Intel processors, as AMD has much smaller microprocessor market share and it will inevitably try to maximize sales of its own-brand chipsets, which, as a consequence, will affect sales of Nvidia’s core-logic products dramatically. But Nvidia seems to think that there is still enough space for it on the market of AMD processors and prepares code-named MCP78 offering, its first core-logic that sports built-in DirectX 10 integrated graphics processor (IGP).According to NVIDIA the chip will be made on 55nm or 65nm.
Nvidia’s MCP78 will feature Hyper-Transport 3.0 bus as well as PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot for add-in graphics cards, two leading-edge interconnection technologies. The new graphics core will, apart from DirectX 10, sport third-generation PureVideo HD engine that accelerates H.264 and VC-1 as well as D-Sub, DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI and TV-out outputs. Like all Nvidia’s core-logic sets, the novelty is also projected to support up to six Serial ATA-300 connectors with RAID capabilities, two Parallel ATA connectors, Gigabit Ethernet controller, 12 USB 2.0 ports and so on. With the new chipset the company will add pressure on AMD's in-house designed IGPs.