- ATI RADEON 1250 onboard integrated graphics core
- 4 Pixel Shader Pipelines
- Vertex Shaders on the CPU
- up to 512MB HyperMemory
- AVIVO support
- Pixel Shader 2.0
- Vertex Shader 2.0
- 90 nanometer process
- 400MHz core clock
- Windows Vista Premium Certified
The integrated graphics on the AMD690GM-M2 motherboard is based upon ATI's RADEON 1250 chipset. One thing to note about ATI's new numbering scheme, I really hate it. Previous to the RADEON 1050 every ATI video card with numbers higher than x1000 was Pixel Shader 3.0 and Vertex Shader 3.0. With the release of the 1250, based upon the X700 series, ATI has moved integrated video into the "ok" performance arena. The only problem is that the card is based upon Shader Model 2.0.
Windows Vista Premium requires a video card with Pixel Shader 2.0 and Vertex Shader 2.0 support, and the X1250 fits the bill for the new operating system's Premium requirements. Integrated graphics have understandably billed as ridiculously underpowered for today's games. As we move further into 2007, we'll likely see graphics chips with SM 3.0 or 4.0 from the major players, but for now the x1250 is excellent.
Today's modern video card has over 48 Pixel Shader Pipelines (RADEON X1950XTX) or even 128 Streaming Processors (GeForce 8800GTX.) The X1250 has four Pixel Shaders running at a clock speed of 400MHz. The x1250 can have up to 512MB of memory with Hypermemory for its frame buffer memory size, clocked at the memory speed.
