PLX Technology announced that its PEX 8547 PCIe switch is used in AMD's (News - Alert) ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 Dual-GPU graphics cards, targeting extreme-gaming enthusiasts.

 

PLX’s ExpressLane PEX 8547 PCIe switch was specially designed for intense graphics applications like the new innovative high-end ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2.

 

PLX Technology (News - Alert), Inc is a supplier of PCI Express and other standard I/O interconnect semiconductors to the communications, server, storage, embedded-control, and consumer markets.

 

PLX Technology provides a competitive advantage through an integrated combination of experience, high-performance silicon, hardware and software design tools, and global partnerships. These innovative solutions enable customers to develop equipment with industry-leading performance, scalability and reliability that allows them to bring designs to market much faster.

 

ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 is industry's well known gaming card, and also industry's first Microsoft (News - Alert) DirectX 10.1 enthusiast solution. With this new leading graphics solution gamers can advance to superior performance on the latest HD games and experience life-like realism. The reality effect in the game is due to support of Microsoft DirectX 10.1 capabilities and also a plug-and-play ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU upgradeability.

 

PEX 8547 PCIe switch offers 48 lanes, three ports, remarkably low latency (only 110 nanoseconds), true peer-to-peer traffic, large packet memory (1024 byte maximum payload size) and a non-blocking internal switch architecture which provides a full line rate on all ports, for those who want to work on extensive graphics applications.

 

"AMD's ground-breaking ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics cards, supported by PLX

PEX 8547 PCIe switches, have demonstrated terrific performance in chart-topping computer games. AMD chose the PLX chip for its industry-leading PCIe features, allowing high-bandwidth peer-to-peer communication between its two powerful next generations Radeon graphics processors leveraging ATI CrossFireX technology on a single board," said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing, Graphics Products Group, AMD, in the press release, "PLX has provided AMD with enhanced flexibility and performance in our designs. Their technical proficiency and top notch customer experience has been a great asset to help create the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics cards."

 

"PCI Express switches and multi-GPU implementations are complementary and logical for enabling the highest-end gaming and enthusiast PC market segments," said Shane Rau, research director, International Data Corp. (IDC (News - Alert)), in the press release, "It is in these segments where you'll find a counter-trend against relentless integration and instead find the most sophisticated discrete components."

 

"Being the perennial leader in PCI Express switch silicon, we have a deep understanding and commitment to the technology and its broad scope in growing market segments including this intense AMD graphics application," said David Raun, PLX vice president of marketing and business development, in the press release, "We enjoy the engaging relationship with AMD and look forward to participating in their exciting future designs."

PLX's PCI Express switches and bridges provide the board and system designers with extensive and proven array of products, in order to address a wide variety of market segments.

 

PLX's Gen 1 and Gen 2 PCIe switches range in density from three to 12 ports and from five to 48 lanes. It also offers backward compatibility supporting its inherited designs.

 

All PLX PCIe products are completely supported with a combination of hardware and a highly customized software development kit (SDK), which contains powerful new tools to help customers design efficiently and quickly.