R600 To Support HDMI Output
According to a story on The Inq, AMD's upcoming R600 will support HDMI output. Not only will the R600 be able to output video via HDMI to two independent displays simultaneously at resolutions up to 1440p, but the card will also add audio output to the mix. By taking advantage of the processing power of the GPU and the bandwidth of a PCI Express x16 connection, the R600 will be able to output both video and digital audio signals together in order to truly take advantage of HDMI technology. As a result, the R600 and its less powerful siblings, the RV630 and RV610, will be the first GPUs to fully utilize HDMI in order to output both video and audio.
The GPU techies designed chips with both HDMI and DisplayPort standards in mind. and everything is embedded inside the GPU, instead of using external cables. The R600 architecture will use the PCI Express x16 connection to the fullest, as the chip will not work only with video data, it will also be able to receive digital audio for embedding the video and audio signal in one. Why? You might ask, and the answer is simple: to deliver both video and audio content using HDMI. R600 boards will be shipped with at least one DVI-to-HDMI dongle, with DVI serving as the bandwidth provider for video and audio. Best of all, we learned that the R600 chip has the bandwidth to drive not one, but two HDMI ports at the same time.
