ATI RD500 Branded as Crossfire 1600
Fudo over at The Inquirer reports that their industry sources are indicating that ATI has opted to name their highly-publicized RD500 chipset as "Crossfire 1600". Here, the 1600 designation is meant to imply the fact that this chipset only supports two PCIe 8x slots. For those waiting for two PCIe x16 slots, you will have to wait for ATI's RD600 chipset which is coming sometime down the road. Until then, the only other chipset options on the market for Conroe aside from RD500 would be Intel's own 975 and P965 chipsets. At this time, there is little to no information on when NVIDIA's nForce solution for Conroe will arrive though it is likely we'll see that chipset around the same time as ATI's RD600 chipset.
"ATI is working hard to finish its much demonstrated RD500 chipset. It's not going to be a top notch one as it will have two x PCIe 8X only, but will likely be the first chipset from ATI that will support Crossfire and Conroe.
The chipset should be ready in a month or two. ATI recognises the importance of Conroe and wants to support Intel as much as it can. The bottom line is to sell as many dual graphic cards as it possibly can, but ATI will sure start working hard to promote its chipsets, but it first have to finish the chipset."
