Introduction
ATI has been an extremely busy company this year, updating products for every
market segment they are competing. In the desktop side with the Radeon 9800, the
notebook segment with the Mobility Radeon 9600 and even the PDA market with the
Imageon 3200. The only product left without a significant makeover has been ATI’s
integrated core logic chipset.
The integrated market, though quite boring for enthusiasts, is very important
for ATI to grow in as it represents nearly 50% of the market on the desktop
side and 30% on the notebook. Dave Orton, ATI’s president and COO has
stated in numerous conferences that competing in the integrated market was one
of ATI’s key goals.
Last year ATI introduced their first integrated product in the IGP 340/320
line. Desktop motherboards based on ATI’s integrated chipset were pretty
scarce as ATI really focused their new integrated chipset on the mobile market.
In the mobile market, the first generation IGP has been a remarkable success,
gaining over 30% of the integrated mobile market share within a year.
Now ATI is concentrating on the desktop market with the release of their new
integrated chipset, the Radeon 9100 IGP. The Radeon 9100 IGP will be available
in both the desktop and mobile market. The key feature of the Radeon 9100 IGP
is integrated graphics processor. Taking the perspective of an average consumer
who will probably end up with an integrated graphics chipset, the integrated
Radeon 9000 chipset is a big step up from what’s available in the market
from ATI and other integrated chipset makers. The biggest difference between other integrated
graphics and the Radeon 9100 IGP is the 9100's hardware support for pixel shaders. Enthusiasts
with their modern 3D graphics cards are already accustomed to
the visual enhancements pixel shaders have to offer, but for the value driven
consumers this is their opportunity to experience pixel shaded enhanced games.
The difference between having pixel shading and not can be like night and day.
Let’s check out the specs of the Radeon 9100 IGP.