Asus blows ATI's graphics NDA?

So remember that laptop that Asus announced earlier today with the ATI Radeon X2300 graphics chip? Sounds to us like Asus just blew a nondisclosure agreement on AMD/ATI's next-generation graphics chip.

It's been common knowledge for awhile that ATI's next-generation, DirectX 10-compatible graphics chip, code-named "R600," is in the works. It's supposed to be the direct competitor to Nvidia's already-released GeForce 8000-series graphics chips. The actual shipping name of the R600 products has been under wraps, although U.K. tech site the Inquirer claimed last week that the chips would be the Radeon X2000-series, a full 1000 beyond its previous Radeon X1000's. Since AMD itself (who, if you'll recall, purchased ATI some months ago), hasn't confirmed the actual name of the thing yet, it looks to us like Asus popped the cork on the next-gen part a little early. If the graphics chip in the new Asus portable really is the Radeon X2300, we'd guess that's the budget model, based on ATI's previous naming conventions.

Adding fuel to our speculative fire, if you go to the link of the original Asus announcement, you'll find that it's "undergoing maintainance" at the moment. We suppose that could be the Digg effect, as the story was linked from Digg earlier. We think it's more entertaining to imagine that instead the PR department at Asus received a nasty phone call from AMD.