Roadmap: Hardware support in chipset
Intel will release
two graphics chipsets in next two quarters. This never happened in Intel's
history at least not in last ten years that we can remember. The first one will
be showcased at Cebit and its called G33. This chipset is supposed to replace
945G / GZ chipsets and to make G965 runs for its money.
The new G33 chipset
supports Yorkfield and Wolfdale processors and Core 2 Duo / Quad Extreme with
FSB 1333 or slower. It supports DDR 2 800 or DDR3 1066 and is compatible with
ICH9, ICH9R and ICH9DH Southbridges. We don't have much details about the
graphics itself but we believe that it should be better than G965 we tested
before.
G35 is scheduled for
Q3, quite odd time to launch a chipset but this integrated baby actually
supports DirectX 10. Intel states that it has DirectX 10 support in hardware
and that it can run Windows premium just fine. This one also supports Yorkfield
and Wolfdale processors, FSB 1333 but DDR 2 800 memory only. There is no sign
of DDR 3 support and oddly enough this chipset supports ICH8, ICH8R and ICH8DH
but not the ICH9 series of Southbridges.
It is scheduled for
Q3 and should see the face between July and September and might be there to get
to OEM machines before back to school buying period. ATI also has RS790 DirectX
10 integrated chipset scheduled for similar time.
