This article is more than 1 year old

Intel roadmaps 1.3GHz DDR 3 chipsets

PCI Express 2.0, DirectX 10 and other goodies supported too.

Intel's 'Bearlake' chipset, the successor to the current 965 series, will debut in Q2 2007, the chip giant's latest roadmaps reveal. However, the more interesting members of the line-up will arrive the following quarter, bringing with them support for DDR 3 memory running at up to 1,333MHz.

According to an Intel roadmap slide snippet posted by DailyTech, the standard discrete and integrated Bearlakes - respectively, the P and G variants, as per today's 965 chipsets - will launch in Q2 2007. They will support a 1,333MHz frontside bus clock and introduce Intel's next-generation South Bridge I/O chip, the ICH9.

Like the current ICH8 part, the ICH9 series will comprise three models: a vanilla ICH9; the ICH9R, with an emphasis on storage - 'R' for RAID; and the digital home application-oriented ICH9DH.

The ICH9 will form the basis for Q3 2007's G+ Bearlake, which brings DirectX 10 support on board, the slide indicates, along with the HDCP anti-piracy technology. It will support 1,066MHz DDR 3, with 800MHz DDR 2 as fall-back.

The same quarter will see the X-class Bearlake, presumably the successor to today 975X chipset. It will support 1,333MHz DDR 3 and introduce PCI Express 2.0, the slide says. It will drive a pair of x16 slots for graphics cards. The slide also notes the Bearlake-X's quad-core CPU support, no great surprise given Intel's quad-core Core 2 Extreme - aka 'Kentsfield' - is set to debut in Q4 2006. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like