Processors Toolkit

AMD ships Windows 7-ready chipset

Sally Whittle ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 04 Aug 2009 16:28 BST

AMD has introduced a chipset to support the upcoming Windows 7 platform, offering integrated graphics capability and support for faster media-streaming technology.

Announced on Tuesday, the AMD 785G chipset, is designed for use in mainstream consumer PCs with Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, which is scheduled for release in October. The existing AMD 740 will continue to be used in entry-level PCs, according to an AMD spokesperson.

The new chipset features integrated graphics performance, based on the ATI Radeon HD 4200. It also has UVD2 (unified video decoder) support, which enables the CPU to decode high-definition information more quickly, AMD said. The 785G will also support DirectX 10.1 games, as well as the DirectX 11 games expected to ship in 2010.

The new processor will be important to AMD in the run up to Christmas, when shipments of Windows 7-based PCs are expected to really kick off, said Clive Longbottom, a service director at Quocirca.

"This is aimed at a very specific part of the market, and will likely appeal to system builders who want to shave costs off entry-level PCs by removing the need for a separate graphics card," Longbottom said.

In a separate announcement on Tuesday, AMD said it will support the OpenGL 3.1 standard from this month. OpenGL is a graphics technology widely used in modelling applications. It allows developers to quickly use functions such as rendering, texture mapping and visualisation of complex data.

The announcement makes sense for AMD because it puts the company in a position to exploit the higher end of the PC market, as businesses that do rendering and modelling move away from Unix-based desktops, said Longbottom. "These are high-level systems, and although the market is small, the margins are very attractive," he said.