AMD 760MP & Athlon MP - Dual Processor Heaven

The Mass Production Chipset: The 760MPX

If you haven’t heard by now, the only motherboard manufacturer that will have a 760MP chipset in the near future will be Tyan.  The Tyan Thunder K7 is actually available today and it will most likely have the exclusive for at least a couple of months.  In fact, no motherboard manufacturers are scheduled to produce a 760MP-based motherboard.  Instead, they will be producing motherboards based on a different revision of the 760MP chipset known as the 760MPX.

The 760MPX was actually already announced by AMD at WinHEC back in April but few picked up on it.  The main difference between the 760MP and the 760MPX is that the latter features a 66MHz 64-bit PCI bus with support for up to two devices off of the North Bridge, and a new South Bridge with support for a legacy 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus.

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The new South Bridge, the AMD 768, is connected to the North Bridge via a 32-bit 66MHz PCI bus offering a total of 266MB/s of bandwidth between the two chips – which is exactly what Intel’s Hub Architecture and VIA’s V-Link offer. 

Is the AMD 760MPX worth holding out for?  Most of the motherboard manufacturers such as ABIT and MSI have already announced their MPX based platforms and we know from MSI that they are targeting the sub-$200 market.  Since AMD will eventually announce Morgan-based Durons validated for MP operation, this could make for some very cheap MP systems. 

AMD's 760MPX Reference Board

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