AMD's next set of consumer desktop platforms, the high-end "Leo" and mainstream "Dorado" are what will bring together AMD's newest system components, including its next round of CPUs, next-generation graphics processors from the DirectX 11 compliant Evergreen family, and the 8-series platform core-logic (chipset) to drive it all. According to latest information pieced together by VR-Zone, AMD's newest chipset will arrive in two rounds of launches, ranging between April and May, 2010.

The two rounds are centric to the platforms they will belong to. On the northbridge front, the enthusiast and high-performance 890FX and 890GX hit retail with products based on it appearing in April 2010, accompanied by the high-end SB850 southbridge. The three will make up the chipset offerings for the Leo platform, which succeeds the current Dragon platform. Following these, the 880G northbridge, accompanied by the SB810 southbridge will make for product launches in May 2010. This pair makes up the mainstream Dorado platform that succeeds the current Pisces platform. The parts will have passed two stages of sampling by this November, and mass production commences in February and April. AMD's newest chipsets are bound to bring in new technologies such as SATA 6 Gb/s, USB 3.0, integrated MAC, and integrated clock generator, along with several other changes.

As the market receives AMD's homegrown chipsets well since its successful 7-series, the company is preparing a new breed of platform core-logic technologies that will serve present and upcoming generations of the company's processors. From what we know so far, the company has designed the RD8xx and RS880, and has reportedly prepared prototype motherboards based on the chipsets. Several motherboard vendors have already prepared their upcoming SKUs based on the RS880 (AMD 880G), though all of these feature current SB710/SB750 series southbridge chips.

The successor, SB850, has been known to bring in an expanded feature set, and more importantly, an update with its storage controller. The southbridge will be one of the first ones to feature the third-generation SATA interface, that offers a maximum bandwidth of 6 Gbps between the system and the storage device, in comparison to 3 Gbps SATA II offers. In RAID mode, the controller will provide RAID 0, 1, JBOD, and RAID 5 modes. Six SATA channels will be supported in all. Other known features include support for 14 USB ports, albeit USB 2.0. AMD won't be embracing USB 3.0 just yet. The new southbridge will be released in Q4 2009 according to a portion of a roadmap slide by the company.