AMD's upcoming RS780 chipset, which might very well be known as something completley different by the time it hits retail, will incorporate a dedictated hardware decoder for Blu-ray and HD DVD.

It can do dual streams at 40Mbps with full interactivity or one HD stream, one SD stream and one HD audio stream simultaneously.

There will be three different versions, the RS780, the RS780C and oddly enough the RS740.

The two RS780 models features DX10 graphics and PCIe 2.0 while hte RS740 only has DX9 graphics and PCIe 1.1 support. All three models supports HDMI and DVI, while the RS780 versions adds Display Port to the list of connectivity options.

The RS780C and RS740 lacks UVD, so you'll have to make do with Avivo if  you go for one of these, not exactly great for anyone that need HD decoding.

The RS780 family should become available in January if all goes according to plan at AMD, but we don't know in which order the new chipsets will launch.