Mainboards powered by ATI RADEON 9100 IGP from Sapphire Technology and ASUSTeK Computer at last reached retail shelves in some Asian stores, particularly in Korea and Japan. Apparently, solutions from both companies offer Intel Pentium 4 processor with SSE3 technology better known as “Prescott” support right out of the box.

ATI’s RADEON 9100 IGP-based mainboards from ASUS and Sapphire are one of a few platforms available in the market with officially claimed support for the next-generation Prescott processors.

In early-Summer 2003 sources close to Intel revealed that due to Prescott’s higher power consumption than originally advertised, some or all mainboards powered by i865- and i875-series of chipsets would not be compatible with next-generation Pentium 4 CPUs with SSE3 technology. Mainboard makers had to redesign their products to add Prescott support, but almost no mainboard producers officially advertise next-generation processors support nowadays.

ATI Technologies’ RADEON 9100 IGP core-logic integrates DirectX 8.1-class RADEON 9200-like graphics core, dual-channel PC3200 memory controller and PSB controller for Intel processors with up to 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus support. Besides, the RADEON 9100 IGP supports external AGP 8x port and can even operate both integrated graphics core and external AGP card to support up to three displays at once.

Sapphire’s Axion RADEON 9100 IGP mainboard employs RS300 North Bridge and IXP150 South Bridge to bring you Socket 478 for various Intel’s CPUs, 2 DIMM slots for up to 2GB of PC3200 memory, two Parallel ATA-33/66/100/133, 10/100Mb/s Ethernet controller, USB 2.0 ports and so on. ASUS P4R800-VM boasts with the same functionality with the exception that its IXP200 I/O controller incorporates 10/100Mb/s Ethernet controller logic from 3Com.

Sapphire’s Axion RADEON 9100 IGP is priced at $105 in South Korea. ASUS P4R800-VM costs $120 in the same country, according to Say25.com web-site. There is no information about RADEON 9100 IGP-based mainboards’ availability in the USA at the time of publication, but you may try using our “Check Prices” feature from time to time for updates.