AMD's anticipated budget chipset, the RS740, has won the approval of PCI Express overseer, the PCI SIG, for its compatibility with version 1.1 of the standard.

The RS740 turned up on a leaked chipset roadmap a wee while ago. It's expected to appear this summer to support AMD's next-generation Athlon and Sempron processors, all of which will use the Socket AM2+ interconnect running HyperTransport 3.

The PCI SIG approval notice provides no details about the chipset's features beyond PCIe 1.1 support. The part is listed as a product in its own right and as part of a motherboard reference design. The chip is expected to go out to mobo makers with AMD's SB600 South Bridge chip.

The RS740 is expected to be accompanied by the mid-range RX740 and the high-end RD790, the latter expected to support up to four graphics cards in CrossFire configurations. The RD790 has already been certified for PCIe 1.1 compatibility.

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