AMD's long-awaited 690 chipset family should ship by the end of the month, Taiwanese mobo-maker moles have claimed. The 690 members will be the first chipsets to be released under the AMD brand and not simply rebranded ATI product.

Late last year, it was claimed that AMD had put back the 690 series' launch from January 2007 to February. The latest report, posted by Taiwanese site DigiTimes, appears to add weight to that claim.

The 690 series will contain discrete and integrated parts, all allied to the SB600 South Bridge chip, the report states. Top-of-the-line integrated models will support HDCP anti-theft technology and the HDMI HD TV port. In the past, it's been claimed the part will include a Radeon X700-class graphics core, providing it with DirectX 9 Shader Model 2.0 support.

AMD formally rebranded ATI's existing chipsets back in December 2006, renaming the CrossFire 1600 and 3200 as the 480X and 580X. Future chipsets are expected to be suffixed X, T, G or V, according to their status as CrossFire-enabled, single-card discrete, integrated or budget integrated product.