The AMD 690 chipset series is an integrated graphics chipset family which was developed and manufactured by AMD subsidiary ATI for both AMD and Intel platforms focusing on both desktop and mobile computing markets. The corresponding chipset for the Intel platform has a marketing name of Radeon Xpress 1200 series.
The chipsets production began in late 2006 with codenames RS690 and RS600, where both of them share similar internal chip design, targeting at the desktop market. Mobile versions of both chipsets have codenames RS690M and RS600M. The marketing name for this chipset on the Intel platform is the Radeon Xpress 1200 series (Radeon Xpress 1200 to Radeon Xpress 1270) while the name for the chipset on the AMD platform is 690G.
Both the 690G and Radeon Xpress 1200 chipsets include an integrated graphics processing unit (IGP) based on the ATI Radeon X700 series GPUs with ATI Avivo technology included for hardware video acceleration. Mobile versions have reduced power consumption with adaptive power management features (PowerPlay). The 690G and Radeon Xpress 1250 chipsets are direct successors to Xpress 1600 integrated graphics chipsets (codenamed RS480 and RS400).
Starting in late 2006, mobile versions of the 690 chipset (RS690M) were being rolled out in mass by major notebook computer manufacturers, including HP, Asus, Dell, Toshiba, Acer, and others. For some OEMs (including Dell and Acer), the M690 series chipset was going to replace the Radeon Xpress 1150 (codenamed RS485M) on the mobile platform, and desktop variants of the 690 chipset were announced in February 2007.
The 690 chipset series consists of three members: 690G, 690V and M690T. The planned "RD690" enthusiast chipset was canceled in the official roadmap without explanation and no release date was given for the "RX690" chipset which has no IGP and only one PCI-E x16 slot.
After ATI was acquired by AMD in July 2006, plans for the Radeon Xpress 1250 chipset for the Intel platform were canceled while the 690G/M690 chipsets for the AMD platform became the main production target. AMD released the chipsets to only two vendors, Abit and ASRock. Abit signed on prior to the AMD acquisition and ASRock was given the remaining inventory of RS600 chips for the Chinese market.
On AMD Technology Analyst Day 2007, AMD announced that 4 million units of 690 chipsets had been shipped to customers, calling it a commercial success. With that in mind, AMD announced on January 21, 2008 that the series will be further extended to embedded systems with the last member, the AMD M690E chipset.
Lineup
The chipset has several variants, they are summarized below, sorted by their northbridge codename.
The first one is the RS690 which is the basic chipset and implemented now as 690G. The second one is the RS690C which is a simplified version of 690G and without TMDS support and named as 690V. The third one in the series is the RS690M for mobile platforms, named M690. The fourth one is the RS690MC, a simplified version of M690 and without TMDS support, called M690V. Another one in the lineup is the RS690T, another variant to the M690 chipset with a local frame buffer (see below). A member for the embedded systems, the M690E, is basically a M690T with different display output configurations.
Key features
IGP General features
Chipset models in the series (excluding RD690 and RX690) feature an Integrated Graphics Processor (IGP) which is incorporated into the northbridge and manufactured on an 80 nm fabrication process. The IGP's 3D architecture is based on Radeon R420 and contains 4 pixel pipelines capable of Shader Model version 2.0b with DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0 compatibility but lacks hardware vertex processing. It uses a shared memory architecture, meaning system RAM is shared with the IGP. The IGP was the first chip in ATI's integrated lineup that included ATI Avivo capabilities (also seen in the Radeon X1000 series), and is therefore capable of decoding videos of resolution up to 720p/1080i in hardware.
Both chipsets in this family are fully compatible with the Windows Aero interface and are Windows Vista Premium certified. Also supported by the chipset are PCI slots, high definition 7.1 channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet.
The northbridge has a TDP of 13.8 Watts or an average of 8 Watts, and is pin compatible with RS485 northbridge. The northbridge supports HyperTransport 2.0 at 1 GHz, and an additional 3 PCI Express x1 slots. The northbridge and southbridge (SB600) are connected via "ALink II". This is in reality 4 PCIe lanes, providing 2 GB/s bandwidth.