It's nothing new that ATI builds motherboard chipsets as well. Thus far, however, its motherboards have lacked clout. Most purchasers know them for their low price rather than top performance. Ati, with the Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition, has set out to banish this reputation once and for all and for the first time is the first choice for enthusiasts and performance-hungry users.

Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition for Intel CPUs.

Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition for AMD CPUs.

The Xpress 200 chipset is available for both Intel and AMD CPUs. The CrossFire model provides 16 PCI Express lines for the graphics cards. A further four lines, also connected to the Northbridge, are available for expansion cards. The Xpress 200 does not require you to switch manually between one- and two-card operations as with many nForce 4 SLI motherboards. ATI claims that CrossFire operation does not limit performance of the other PCIe slots.

The company sets great store on making the chipset as palatable for enthusiasts as possible. For instance, the graphics specialist promises a high degree of compatibility with the high-performance memory modules of well-known manufacturers. Thanks to the 130-nanometer production process, the chipset should also offer excellent potential for overclocking, without the need for costly component cooling.