was scheduled for release December 2006, named as "DFI LanParty UT ICFX3200 - TR2/G". There are now actual products of "DFI LanParty UT ICFX3200 - TR2/G" on sale in some places such as Hong Kong and Singapore. As the NDA rapidly approached, some popular overclocking sites such as XtremeSystems and VR-Zone started posting teasers for the soon to be released "DFI LanParty UT ICFX3200 - TR2/G". However, a big surprise was the revelation that the RD600 was based on a version of the RD480 or the Xpress 1600 chipset. One popular reason for this was that the RD480 was also designed for an Intel platform but constant delays and revision issues caused the Intel RD480 to become the RD600. Recent report says Asus has finished a chipset design for RD600. Official features 2 or 3 physical PCI Express slots 20 PCI-Express lanes configured with 2 PCI-E lanes dedicated for Northbridge and Southbridge connection, 16x PCI-E lane for dedicated graphics (2 8x PCI-E lanes when in Crossfire mode) and a 2x lane for Crossfire physics. The revised Northbridge - Southbridge link from the RD580 is used and a revised PCI-E controller built into the Northbridge. Support for up to 6 SATA hard disks Trivia The RD580 was codenamed "Manta". The reason was because of the use of aquarium fishes for codenames within ATI. Engineering samples were completed just after the launch of Nvidia's nForce 4 16x SLI. The RD580 was supposedly launched on the same day the Radeon X1900 but it was delayed to coincide with the launch of the socket AM2. However, with the slippage in the Socket AM2 to June 6, 2006, ATI decided to launch on March 1, 2006. The package of the RD580 is no bigger than a US 50 cents and has a thermal dissipation rating of 7 watt. The world record for highest 3DMark2005 score using Crossfire was achieved on this chipset during the launch. Asus was rumoured selling the chipset before the launch of the Xpress 3200 in Seville. It was confirmed by various overclocking websites all round the world. The Xpress 3200 is pin compatible with the Xpress 200 boards, making R&D much more cost effective. ATI released the Xpress 3200 for AM2 after Nvidia's launch of the nForce 500 series. AMD has renamed the chipsets for AMD platform as the AMD 580X Crossfire after the takeover of ATI. See also ATI Technologies