The AMD 700 chipset series (also called as AMD 7-Series Chipsets) is a set of chipsets designed by

ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...

for

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

Phenom Phenom may refer to: * AMD Phenom, the 64-bit AMD desktop processor line based on the K10 microarchitecture ** Phenom II, a family of AMD's multi-core 45 nm processors using the AMD K10 microarchitecture * Phenom (electron microscope), a fast elec ...

processors to be sold under the AMD brand. Several members were launched in the end of 2007 and the first half of 2008, others launched throughout the rest of 2008.

Development history

The existence of the chipsets was proven in October 2006 through two hardware websites in Chile and Spain which posted the leaked slides of an ATI internal event, "ATI chipset update". In the slides, ATI has shown a series of RD700 series chipset logics codenamed ''RD790'', ''RX790'', ''RS780'' and ''RS740'' respectively. A ''SB700'' southbridge was also mentioned in the event. The 790X (codename ''RD780'') chipset was spotted in Computex 2007, exhibited by ASUS. The ''RS780D'' was first reported by HKEPC while the ''RX780H'' was first seen on ECS internal presentations. After the acquisition of ATI Technologies, AMD started to participate in the development of the chipset series. And as a result, the first performance and enthusiast segment chipsets products under the AMD brand, the 790FX, 790X and 770 chipsets were launched on November 19, 2007 as part of the ''Spider'' codenamed desktop performance platform. The 780 chipset series, first launched in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

on January 23, 2008, and released worldwide on March 5, 2008 during

CeBIT CeBIT was the largest and most internationally representative computer expo. The trade fair was held each year on the Hanover fairground, the world's largest fairground, in Hanover, Germany. In its day, it was considered a barometer of cur ...

2008, mobile chipsets (M740G, M780G and M780T chipsets) were released on June 4, 2008 during

Computex COMPUTEX Taipei, or Taipei International Information Technology Show (), is a computer expo held annually in Taipei, Taiwan. Since the early 2000s, it is one of the largest computer and technology trade shows in the world. The last COMPUTEX was ...

2008 as part of the Puma mobile platform and the 790GX chipset was released on August 6, 2008, while some other members released at a later date in 2008. The 785G was announced on August 4, 2009.

Line-up

790FX

*Codenamed ''RD790'', final name revealed to be "AMD 790FX chipset" *single AMD processor configuration *Four physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slots @ x8 or two physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slots, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots,ChileHardware discussion thread
the chipset provides a total of 38 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *

HyperTransport HyperTransport (HT), formerly known as Lightning Data Transport, is a technology for interconnection of computer processors. It is a bidirectional serial/parallel high-bandwidth, low- latency point-to-point link that was introduced on April 2 ...

3.0 with support for HTX slots and

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...

2.0 * ATI CrossFire X * AutoXpress *

AMD OverDrive The AMD 700 chipset series (also called as AMD 7-Series Chipsets) is a set of chipsets designed by ATI for AMD Phenom processors to be sold under the AMD brand. Several members were launched in the end of 2007 and the first half of 2008, others ...

* Energy efficient Northbridge design **65 nm

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...

fabrication process manufactured by

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC; also called Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational corporation, multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is the world's most valuable semicon ...

*Extreme overclocking, reported to have achieved about 420 MHz bus for overclocking an Athlon 64 FX-62 processor, from originally 200 MHz. *Optional discrete chipset cache memory of at least 16 KB to reduce latencies and increase bandwidth *Supports Dual

Gigabit Ethernet In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use i ...

, and teaming option *Reference board codenamed "''Wahoo''"TG Daily report
. Retrieved July 27, 2007. for dual-processor system reference design board with three physical PCI-E x16 slots, and "''HammerHead''" for single-socket system reference design board with four physical PCI-E x16 slots, also notable was the reference boards includes two ATA ports and only four

SATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard to ...

3.0 Gbit/s ports (as being paired with SB600 southbridge). *Will pair with SB750 southbridge with support up to six SATA ports and enhanced Phenom processors overclocking via ACC functionality, and will later support

Socket AM3 Socket AM3 is a CPU socket for AMD processors. AM3 was launched on February 9, 2009 as the successor to Socket AM2+, alongside the initial grouping of Phenom II processors designed for it. The sole principal change from AM2+ to AM3 is support for ...

with

DDR3 SDRAM Double Data Rate 3 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR3 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) with a high bandwidth (" double data rate") interface, and has been in use since 2007. It is the higher-speed ...

support in the first quarter of 2009. *Enthusiast discrete multi-graphics segment *Public documentation is not available yet

790X

*Codenamed ''RD780'', final name revealed to be "AMD 790X chipset" *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot or two physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slots @ x8, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *

ATI CrossFire AMD CrossFire (also known as CrossFireX) is a brand name for the multi-GPU technology by Advanced Micro Devices, originally developed by ATI Technologies. The technology allows up to four GPUs to be used in a single computer to improve graphics ...

* AutoXpress *

* Energy efficient Northbridge design **65 nm

fabrication process manufactured by

*Mobile version (codenamed ''RD780M'') planned, supporting CrossFire for two AXIOM/MXM discrete mobile GPUs *Can pair with SB750 southbridge with support up to six SATA ports and enhanced Phenom processors overclocking via ACC functionality. *Supports

with

depending on motherboard BIOS *Performance discrete multi-graphics segment

790GX

*Codenamed ''RS780D'', final name seen on internal AMD presentation *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot or two physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slots @ x8, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *

Integrated graphics A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

: Radeon HD 3300ChileHardware report
. Retrieved January 17, 2008. **

ATI Hybrid Graphics AMD Hybrid Graphics technology, is a collective brand from AMD for its Radeon line of discrete and integrated GPU, promoting higher performance and productivity while saving energy consumption in GPUs. The technology previously applied to selec ...

**Side-port memory as local

frame buffer A framebuffer (frame buffer, or sometimes framestore) is a portion of random-access memory (RAM) containing a bitmap that drives a video display. It is a memory buffer containing data representing all the pixels in a complete video frame. Modern ...

,Fudzilla report
Retrieved October 4, 2007. supporting DDR2 and

GDDR3 GDDR3 SDRAM (Graphics Double Data Rate 3 SDRAM) is a type of DDR SDRAM specialized for graphics processing units (GPUs) offering less access latency and greater device bandwidths. Its specification was developed by ATI Technologies in collabor ...

chips.HKEPC report
Retrieved October 25, 2007. ** ATI PowerPlay technology **UVD+ *Two physical PCI-E x16 slots (one 16x and one 8x electrically. In Crossfire mode, both will revert to 8x electrically) *HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *

** Hybrid CrossFire X *

* Energy efficient Northbridge design **55 nm

fabrication process manufactured by

**528-pin

Flip Chip Flip chip, also known as controlled collapse chip connection or its abbreviation, C4, is a method for interconnecting dies such as semiconductor devices, IC chips, integrated passive devices and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), to externa ...

Ball Grid Array A ball grid array (BGA) is a type of surface-mount packaging (a chip carrier) used for integrated circuits. BGA packages are used to permanently mount devices such as microprocessors. A BGA can provide more interconnection pins than can be p ...

(FCBGA) package *Performance hybrid multi-graphics segment

785G

*Codenamed ''RS880'' *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *

: Radeon HD 4200 ** ATI Hybrid Graphics and PowerXpress **Side-port memory as local

, supporting DDR2 and

DDR3 Double Data Rate 3 Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory (DDR3 SDRAM) is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) with a high bandwidth ("double data rate") interface, and has been in use since 2007. It is the higher-speed ...

** UVD 2.0 **

ATI Stream AMD FireStream was AMD's brand name for their Radeon-based product line targeting stream processing and/or GPGPU in supercomputers. Originally developed by ATI Technologies around the Radeon X1900 XTX in 2006, the product line was previously b ...

capabilities *No 7.1-channel LPCM supportAnandTech: AMD 785G Update — Multi-Channel LPCM is not Available
/ref> *HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *

* Energy efficient Northbridge design **55 nm

fabrication process by

*Mainstream hybrid graphics (DirectX 10.1 IGP) segment

785E

*Codenamed ''RS785E'' *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot or two physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slots @ x8, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *

: Radeon HD 4200 ** ATI Hybrid Graphics and PowerXpress **Side-port memory as local

, supporting DDR2 and

** ATI PowerPlay technology ** UVD 2 *HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *

** Hybrid CrossFire X *High-end

embedded systems An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

segment

780G/780V

*Codenamed ''RS780''/''RS780C'' *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *

: Radeon HD 3200 (780G), Radeon 3100 (780V)HKEPC review
Retrieved January 29, 2008. **205 million transistorsFudzilla report
Retrieved March 6, 2008. ** ATI Hybrid Graphics and PowerXpress (780G only, PowerXpress for M780G only) **Side-port memory as local

, supporting DDR2 and

chips (780G only) ** ATI PowerPlay technology ** UVD+ (780G only) *One physical PCI-E x16 slot * HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *

* Energy efficient Northbridge design **55 nm

fabrication process manufactured by

**528-pin

(FCBGA) package **1.1 V core voltageHKEPC image
. Retrieved February 19, 2008. *" Remote IT" (temporary name, 780V only) *Pin-to-Pin compatible to ''RS690'' *Reference board design codenamed "''Seahorse''" *Mobile version (M780G, codenamed ''RS780M''/M780V, codenamed ''RS780MC'') demonstrated in May 2007, and will be available during second or third quarter (Q2-Q3) 2008, with the implementation of PowerXpress technology, providing one

PCI-E PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial communication, serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older Conventional PCI, PCI, PCI-X and A ...

slot for

AXIOM An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...

/ MXM modules and HyperFlash support for the ''Puma'' platform *Mainstream hybrid graphics (DirectX 10 IGP) segment (780G), value and commercial DirectX 10 IGP segment (780V)

780E

*Codenamed ''RS780E'' *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot or two physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slots @ x8, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *

: Radeon HD 3200 **205 million transistors ** ATI Hybrid Graphics and PowerXpress **Side-port memory as local

, supporting DDR2 and

chips up to 128 MB ** ATI PowerPlay technology **

UVD Unified Video Decoder (UVD, previously called Universal Video Decoder) is the name given to AMD's dedicated video decoding ASIC. There are multiple versions implementing a multitude of video codecs, such as H.264 and VC-1. UVD was introduced wit ...

+ *One x16 or two x8 PCI-E x16 slot (physical x16 slot) *HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *

** Hybrid CrossFire X * Energy efficient Northbridge design **55 nm

fabrication process manufactured by

**528-pin

(FCBGA) package **1.1 V core voltage *Reference development board design codenamed "''Mahogany''" *High-end

segment

770

*Codenamed ''RX780'', final product name revealed by ECS *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot and two PCIe 2.0 x1 slots, the chipset provides a total of 22 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *

* Energy efficient Northbridge design **65 nm

fabrication process manufactured by

*Mobile version (M770, codenamed ''RX781''), supports discrete graphics, and support for "add-on" graphics solution, via external

cabling *Mainstream discrete single-graphics segment *Public documentation is not available yet

760G

*Codenamed ''RS780L'' *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slot and one PCIe 2.0 x4 slot, the chipset provides a total of 20 PCIe 2.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *

: Radeon 3000 Graphics **GPU 350 MHz, memory shared DDR3 533 MHz, power consumption 5.1-6.1 W ** ATI PowerPlay technology **

*55 nm

fabrication process manufactured by

*HyperTransport 3.0 and PCI Express 2.0 *Value DirectX 10.0 IGP segment *Public documentation is not available yet

740

*Codenamed ''RX740'' *Single AMD processor configuration *One physical PCIe 1.1 x16 slot and one PCIe 1.1 x4 slot, the chipset provides a total of 20 PCIe 1.1 lanes and 4 PCIe 1.1 for A-Link Express II solely in the Northbridge *HyperTransport 2.0 and PCI Express 1.1a * Energy efficient Northbridge design *Value discrete single-graphics segment *Public documentation is not available yet

Southbridges

Besides the use of SB600 southbridge for earlier releases of several members in late 2007, all of the above chipsets can also utilize newer southbridge designs, the SB700, SB710 and the SB750 southbridges. Future server chipsets will also utilize the server version (SB700S/SB750S) of the southbridges. Features provided by the southbridge are listed as follows:

SB700

*Support up to 6

3.0 Gbit/s

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

s, with

RAID 0 In computer storage, the standard RAID levels comprise a basic set of RAID ("redundant array of independent disks" or "redundant array of inexpensive disks") configurations that employ the techniques of striping, mirroring, or parity to create lar ...

, 1, 10 support *

eSATA SATA (Serial AT Attachment) is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard t ...

support *1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices *Support up to 14

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

ports (12 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 1.1) * I/O acceleration technologies *Consumer

Infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

receiver/transmitter port compatible with

IrDA The Infrared Data Association (IrDA) is an industry-driven interest group that was founded in 1994 by around 50 companies. IrDA provides specifications for a complete set of protocols for wireless infrared communications, and the name "IrDA" also ...

standards *

DASH The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

1.0 support

SB710

MSI 760GM-E51 (FX) - AMD Southbride 218-0660017-9671

All features from SB700 *

Super I/O Super I/O is a class of I/O controller integrated circuits that began to be used on personal computer motherboards in the late 1980s, originally as add-in cards, later embedded on the motherboards. A super I/O chip combines interfaces for a vari ...

* Advanced Clock Calibration for enhanced CPU overclocking **Direct communication channel composed of six data pins which were previously reserved between the CPU and the southbridge ** Advanced Clock Calibration (Option available with AMD OverDrive software 2.1.1 and later)

SB750

*All features of SB700 *

RAID 5 In computer storage, the standard RAID levels comprise a basic set of RAID ("redundant array of independent disks" or "redundant array of inexpensive disks") configurations that employ the techniques of striping, mirroring, or parity to create lar ...

support *

*Enhanced CPU overclocking for K10-based processors only, originally named "OverDrive 3.0"Fudzilla report
retrieved May 2, 2008 **Direct communication channel composed of six data pins which were previously reserved between the CPU and the southbridge ** Advanced Clock Calibration (Option available with AMD OverDrive software 2.1.1 and later)

SP5100

*All features of SB700 *

*Target for future server chipsets *Originally named SB700S, later renamed as SP5100.

SB750S

*All features of SB750 *Target for future server chipsets

Key features

Multi-graphics

The ATI CrossFire X technology supports multiple video cards to be connected to enhance the visual display and 3D rendering capabilities of the system, using

AFR AFR may refer to: * ''AFR'' (film), a 2007 film * Afrikaans language, ISO-639 code * Air France, ICAO code * Air–fuel ratio * Armed Forces Radio * Alternate frame rendering * American Family Radio * American Film Renaissance * American flag rug ...

mode and/or scissor mode. Alternatively, systems with multiple video card CrossFire X setup will support multiple display monitors up to eight. For the AMD 790FX chipset, the CrossFire X technology allows up to 4 video cards to be connected, made possible as the chipset supports four physical

x16 slots. The

lanes can be configured for 4 slots at x8 bandwidth or 2 slots at x16 bandwidth (16x-16x, 8x-8x-8x or 8x-8x-8x-8x CrossFire X setup). Reports indicate 2.6 times the performance with triple-card CrossFire than that of a single card, and more than 3.3 times the performance increase for quad-card CrossFire.

Gigabyte The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB. This defini ...

have revealed in a leaked product presentation that the four card CrossFire X setup does not require CrossFire connectors; the data will be exchanged among the PCI-E slots which is monitored and controlled by Catalyst drivers. For the performance segment, CrossFire on the AMD 790X chipset has two physical

x16 slots with one operating at x8 bandwidth (dual-card 8x-8x CrossFire), supporting up to four display monitors. Multi-graphics is also supported for the 790GX IGP chipset, named as Hybrid CrossFire X.

AMD OverDrive

Another feature is AMD OverDrive, an application designed to boost system performance through a list of items in real-time, without a system reboot, as listed below: *Real-time Overclocking: **Novice mode for users not familiar with system tuning, includes a slider of level 0 to 10 for easy system tuning **Advanced mode for more familiar enthusiasts to fine tune various system parameters including: Clock frequencies – independent clock frequencies for independent processor cores (Phenom processors only),

lanes, system bus frequency; Multipliers for each of the CPU cores and

links (downward direction only except Black Edition processors); And voltages for CPU ( VID and V_DDC), CPU

, DDR2 Memory (V_DDQ and V_TT), northbridge core (V_Core) and Northbridge

. Overclocking also applies to the IGP and the side-port memory since the release of version 2.1.4. **"Auto Clock" for automatic fine-tuning and overclocking *Memory fine-tuning – DDR2 Memory parameters *System monitoring: **System information ***Simple mode –

Windows Task Manager Task Manager, previously known as Windows Task Manager, is a task manager, system monitor, and startup manager included with Microsoft Windows systems. It provides information about computer performance and running software, including name of r ...

like CPU cores usage histogram, with CPU core clock Frequencies, CPU Multipliers, CPU core voltages (V_Core), CPU Temperature; GPU details including GPU core frequency, video memory frequency; and system parameters including system bus frequency, southbridge frequency, PCI-E lanes frequency and memory frequency ***Detailed mode – include all system information items presented in the simple mode, with the addition of CPU caches, CPU voltages, memory details including memory frequencies and SPD settings, HyperTransport frequency and link width **System Monitor **(Optional) System benchmark, resulting a value to reflect relative system performance, tests include: integer computation, floating-point computation, memory speed, cache speed **(Optional) Processor stability test, normally runs for one hour, can also be run for a minimum of 1 minute or a maximum of seven days, to identify whether the system becomes unstable for use after fine-tuning under full-loading condition. Tests include: integer (integer units) calculations and stack operations test for each processor core, floating-point (128-bit FPU) calculations test for each processor core, calculation test (

processors only), MCA registers checking test *Maintenance/User-friendly functionalities: **Profile(s) saving and loading capabilities **Log records output The application will support all members of the AMD 700 chipset series, including the 740 series chipsets which are aimed at value markets, and AMD processors including

and

Athlon 64 The Athlon 64 is a ninth-generation, AMD64-architecture microprocessor produced by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), released on September 23, 2003. It is the third processor to bear the name ''Athlon'', and the immediate successor to the Athlon XP. T ...

family of processors, but due to architectural limitations, independent clock frequency settings for different processor cores (a feature implemented in the K10 microarchitecture) will not function on Athlon 64 family of processors (except for

Athlon X2 The Athlon 64 X2 is the first native dual-core desktop central processing unit (CPU) designed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). It was designed from scratch as native dual-core by using an already multi-CPU enabled Athlon 64, joining it with anot ...

7000 series which is based on K10).

AutoXpress

The AutoXpress technology is a set of automatic system tuning features to enhance system performance, which were revealed by members of ChileHardware when investigating the

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...

for AMD 790FX, 790X and 770 chipsets. AutoXpress will be available on AMD 790FX (codenamed ''RD790'') chipset, with AMD 790X (codenamed ''RD780'') and AMD 770 (codenamed ''RX780'') chipsets implementing a subset of all the features. The AutoXpress technology is similar to the ''LinkBoost'' capability presented on

NVIDIA Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...

nForce 500 The nForce 500 is a motherboard chipset series and the successor to the nForce4 series. It was revealed by NVIDIA on 2006-03-07 and released on May 23, 2006. The nForce 500 series supports AMD's Socket AM2 and support for Intel's LGA 775 has als ...

600 __NOTOC__ 600 ( DC) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 600 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the ...

chipsets. The feature must be enabled via BIOS, options appeared in the BIOS includes ON/OFF/Custom, which choosing the "Custom" option will open up three further options, namely "CPU", "XpressRoute" and "MemBoost" with ON/OFF options, and ON as default. Details about the AutoXpress features are listed as follows:

Advanced Clock Calibration

Advanced clock calibration (ACC) is a feature originally available for Phenom families of processors, particularly for Black Edition ones, to increase the overclocking potential of the CPU. ACC is supported by the SB710 and the SB750 southbridges, and available through BIOS settings on some motherboards and AMD OverDrive utility. It was later discovered that this functionality has the possibility of unlocking the supposedly disabled cores of some Phenom II X2/X3 processors. In normal cases, it is not possible to use or unlock any of those hidden cores because originally those cores were disabled: a technique called "chip harvesting" or "feature binning" used by AMD to sell parts with one or two defective cores which will cause system instability if not disabled. The following are available through the Advanced Clock Calibration feature: # Auto or manual settings # Allow separate settings for each of the CPU cores # Allowed range: -12% to +12% # Possibility of unlocking AMD Phenom II X2/X3, AMD Athlon II X2/X3 and AMD Sempron locked cores / cache. (with BIOS support) The principle of ACC is not publicly discussed by AMD but some third-party vendors, including ASUS (Core Unlocker) and Biostar (BIO-unlocKING) have had it for some time. Gigabyte has added this feature, called CPU Core Control, to many NB785/SB710 boards via BIOS update, and will be including this feature (now called Auto Unlock) in all of their 800 Series boards with the SB850 chip. On many of the boards, the feature is dependent on BIOS version. While NVIDIA also has a similar technology for its nForce 780a motherboards, called NVCC (NVIDIA Clock Calibration) with very similar functionality.

Energy efficiency

One of the major focus of the chipset series is the energy efficiency of the chipsets. The need for energy-efficient chipsets have risen since chipsets starts including more features and more

lanes, to provide better system scalability by using PCI-E add-on cards. But one issue is that chipset circuitries were usually made on a larger fabrication process nodes compared with the latest CPU process node, making recent chipsets consume more and more power than their predecessors. Recent examples including the Intel X38 chipset Northbridge (MCH), labelling 26.5 W TDP with a maximum idle power of 12.3 W, which results in the usage of

integrated heat spreader A heat spreader transfers energy as heat from a hotter source to a colder heat sink or heat exchanger. There are two thermodynamic types, passive and active. The most common sort of passive heat spreader is a plate or block of material having hi ...

(IHS) design over the chip to help heat spread evenly, with ASUS even adding water cooling block directly on top of the heatsink of the X38 Northbridge as a part of the motherboard heatpipe system. Although the aforementioned figures may be small compared to the TDP figures of a performance CPU, there is a growing demand for computer systems with higher performance and lower power consumption. While Intel focuses only on the energy efficiency of its processors, NVIDIA's nForce 780i chipset requires an overall power consumption of 48 W with the northbridge, southbridge and the nForce 200 PCI-E bridge. In response to this, all discrete northbridges of the chipset series were designed on a

65 nm The 65 nm process is an advanced lithographic node used in volume CMOS ( MOSFET) semiconductor fabrication. Printed linewidths (i.e. transistor gate lengths) can reach as low as 25 nm on a nominally 65 nm process, while the pitc ...

process, manufactured by

, aimed at lowering power consumptions of chipsets. According to internal testing and various reports, the Northbridge of the AMD 790FX chipset (''RD790'') runs at 3 W when idle, and maximum 10 W under load,Fudzilla report
/ref> nominal 8 W power consumption, the northbridge was seen on reference design of the AMD 790FX chipset with single passive cooling heatsink instead of connecting to

heat pipe A heat pipe is a heat-transfer device that employs phase transition to transfer heat between two solid interfaces. At the hot interface of a heat pipe, a volatile liquid in contact with a thermally conductive solid surface turns into a vapor ...

s which are frequently used on current performance motherboard offers, the chipset on the whole (the combination of RD790 Northbridge and SB600 Southbridge) consumes nominally less than 15 W. The integrated graphics northbridges were also benefited, as most of the IGP northbridges were made on 55 nm process manufactured by TSMC with the inclusion of ATI PowerPlay technology, allowing dynamically changing the core clock frequency to minimum 150 MHz. The 780G Northbridge, sporting

DirectX 10 Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct" ...

support, consumes only 11.4 W on full load, 0.94 watt when idle. This is also smaller than the TDP figures of the Intel G35 chipset Northbridge at 28 W with the maximum idle power of 11 W.

ATI Hybrid Graphics

The ATI Hybrid Graphics technology applies to all or some of the integrated graphics chipsets of this chipset series, technologies including Hybrid CrossFire X, SurroundView and PowerXpress. Reports confirmed that the 790GX IGP (codenamed ''RS780D'') chipset will be able to handle dual video card and IGP as a CrossFire X setup.HKEPC report
AMD touts Hybrid Crossfire X technology, combining IGP and GPU, available in Q2 2008. Retrieved December 12, 2007. Hybrid Graphics are only available with 24xx, 34xx, & 42xx model ATI graphics cards.

I/O acceleration technologies

All chipsets paired with either SB700, SB710 or SB750 southbridge will support two I/O acceleration technologies, as listed below:

Hybrid Drives

The southbridges also support

hybrid drive In computing, a hybrid drive (solid state hybrid drive – SSHD) is a logical or physical storage device that combines a faster storage medium such as solid-state drive (SSD) with a higher-capacity hard disk drive (HDD). The intent is adding s ...

s via

or supported ATA ports, which is compliant with the requirements of the Windows ReadyDrive technology, which is basically a conventional

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

with an embedded NAND flash module.

HyperFlash

The HyperFlash, basically a NAND flash module on a card, originally planned as a device connected to the supported IDE/ ATA 66/100/133 channel, to speed up system performance through the Windows ReadyBoost and Windows ReadyDrive functionality. A HyperFlash module consists of two parts, the first part is a HyperFlash memory card which are flash memory chips on a small PCB (dimensions similar to a Canadian quarter 25¢, with diameter 23.88 mm, but rectangular in shape) with contacts similar to

SO-DIMM A DIMM () (Dual In-line Memory Module), commonly called a RAM stick, comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These memory modules are mounted on a printed circuit board and designed for use in personal computers, ...

modules. The other part is a

flash controller A flash memory controller (or flash controller) manages data stored on flash memory (usually NAND flash) and communicates with a computer or electronic device. Flash memory controllers can be designed for operating in low duty-cycle environments l ...

on an ATA connector, with similar

latch A latch or catch (called sneck in Northern England and Scotland) is a type of mechanical fastener that joins two (or more) objects or surfaces while allowing for their regular separation. A latch typically engages another piece of hardware on t ...

es/socket ejectors as SO-DIMM sockets. The HyperFlash memory card is inserted into the flash controller and then directly plugged into the motherboard ATA connector. The memory chips used on the HyperFlash memory card will be

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

'
OneNAND flash memory modules
with maximum four-die configuration (four-die in a single package), running at 83

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

frequency, providing a bandwidth of 108 MB/s on a 16-bit bus width. Since the flash controller is designed to be compatible with ATA pin-out definitions (also to fit the ATA motherboard connector) and is designed by Molex, this allows

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

s to produce their own brands of HyperFlash modules while at the same time providing maximum compatibility between HyperFlash modules. Three variants were reportedly be available for HyperFlash modules, with capacity of 512 MiB, 1 GiB and 2 GiB respectively, with expected

DVT Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a type of venous thrombosis involving the formation of a blood clot in a deep vein, most commonly in the legs or pelvis. A minority of DVTs occur in the arms. Symptoms can include pain, swelling, redness, and enla ...

samples in November 2007 and mass-production expected in December 2007 (supported by

Beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

motherboard drivers) and official motherboard driver support planned in February 2008. However, it was reportedly cancelled.

RAIDXpert

The RAIDXpert is a remote RAID configuration tool, for changing the RAID level of the RAID setup connected via SATA 3.0 Gbit/s ports (connected to SB600, excluding extra SATA 3.0 Gbit/s ports through additional SATA chip on some motherboard implementations), including RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1.

Integrated graphics

Some of the members of the AMD 700 chipset series, specifically the 780 and 740 family of chipsets and the 790GX chipset, have integrated graphics onboard ( IGP), as well as supporting hardware video playback acceleration at different levels. All IGP northbridges are

pin-compatible In electronics, pin-compatible devices are electronic components, generally integrated circuits or expansion cards, sharing a common footprint and with the same functions assigned or usable on the same pins. Pin compatibility is a property desir ...

to each other and even predecessors ( 690 series), to lower the product cost for each PCB redesign due to pin incompatibility and maximize the product lineup. These IGP features are listed below:

"Remote IT"

For the enterprise platform, the "Remote IT" technology (temporary name) was reported to be released by the end of 2007 or early 2008. The platform composed of an AMD 780V chipset with an SB700 southbridge, and chips from Broadcom, Realtek and Marvell.DigiTimes report
Retrieved July 21, 2007. It was reported to have incorporated the Broadcom BCM5761 managed NIC controller with

Intelligent Platform Management Interface The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) is a set of computer interface specifications for an autonomous computer subsystem that provides management and monitoring capabilities independently of the host system's CPU, firmware ( BIOS o ...

(IPMI) 1.5 manageability standard, together with DASH 1.0 specification
DASH page on

DMTF Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit industry standards organization that creates open manageability standards spanning diverse emerging and traditional IT infrastructures including cloud, virtualization, network, s ...

) support of the SB700 and SB750 southbridges, and reported support additional management and security technologies such as IDM ( Intelligent Device Management) and TPM 1.2 (

Trusted Platform Module Trusted Platform Module (TPM, also known as ISO/IEC 11889) is an international standard for a secure cryptoprocessor, a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware through integrated cryptographic keys. The term can also refer to a ch ...

Reception

In a comparison against the

GeForce 8200 GeForce 8000 series is a series of Nvidia motherboard chipsets aimed at home theater PC and gaming pc solutions using CPUs by AMD (''for its Intel CPUs equivalent see GeForce 9300 or GeForce 9400 chipsets''). The chipsets are capable of full 1080 ...

Anandtech ''AnandTech'' is an online computer hardware magazine owned by Future plc. It was founded in 1997 by then-14-year-old Anand Lal Shimpi, who served as CEO and editor-in-chief until August 30, 2014, with Ryan Smith replacing him as editor-in-chief ...

considered the 780G "a better balanced chipset offering improved casual gaming performance, equal video quality, similar power requirements, greater availability, and better pricing."The IGP Chronicles Part 2: AMD 780G vs. Intel G45 vs. NVIDIA GeForce 8200
/ref> The 8200, however, was preferred as a single-purpose

HTPC A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording ...

solution. Both chipsets were considered superior to Intel's G45/ X4500HD, which was cited for a lack of driver quality and features, and a higher price.

Northbridge issues (760G, M770, 780x, M780x, 790GX)

*All platforms: **Low speed instability with

version 3 capable processors. HT3 speeds 1.2 GHz up to 1.6 GHz should not be used, only 1.8 up to 2.2 GHz speeds are safe to be used. HT3 processors operating at 1.6 GHz (Phenom X3 8250e, Phenom X4 9100e and Phenom X4 9150e) will suffer from high retry count on the HyperTransport link which may result in hangs on revision A12 northbridges. *Windows platform: ** Microsoft KB959345

Southbridge issues (SB7x0)

Most OSes require patches in order to work reliably. *Windows platform: **Microsoft KB982091 **Microsoft KB956871 **Microsoft KB953689 *Linux platform: **

HPET The High Precision Event Timer (HPET) is a hardware timer available in modern x86-compatible personal computers. Compared to older types of timers available in the x86 architecture, HPET allows more efficient processing of highly timing-sensitiv ...

operation with MSI causes LPC DMA corruption on devices using LPC DMA (floppy, parallel port, serial port in FIR mode) because MSI requests are misinterpreted as DMA cycles by the broken LPC controller **

freeze when multiple devices are connected through hub (related to AMD Product Advisory PA_SB700AK1) **Erratic behaviour of the

when Spread Spectrum is enabled (related to AMD Product Advisory PA_SB700AG2) **Disabling legacy interrupts for

disables MSI too **SATA soft reset fails when PMP is enabled and attached devices will not be detected **SATA internal errors are ignored because the controller will set Serial ATA port Error when it should not

References

External links

AMD official websiteATI official websiteAMD 780E, SB710 Chipset: A high-performance embedded platform solutionAMD 785E Designed to deliver a superior visual experience in an ultra power-efficient platform
{{DEFAULTSORT:Amd 700 Chipset Series Advanced Micro Devices chipsets ATI Technologies products Computer-related introductions in 2008

Development history

Line-up

790FX

790X

790GX

785G

785E

780G/780V

780E

770

760G

740

Southbridges

SB700

SB710

SB750

SP5100

SB750S

Key features

Multi-graphics

AMD OverDrive

AutoXpress

Advanced Clock Calibration

Energy efficiency

ATI Hybrid Graphics

I/O acceleration technologies

Hybrid Drives

HyperFlash

RAIDXpert

Integrated graphics

"Remote IT"

Reception

Northbridge issues (760G, M770, 780x, M780x, 790GX)

Southbridge issues (SB7x0)

See also

References

External links