Santa Rosa is imminent, there is a refresh coming, and Montevina exists. The big news is on the GPU front.

Eden said in no uncertain terms that Santa Rosa will not be DX10 compliant on release, a feature that was expected. In light of the Intel announcement at CeBIT that G965 would never make the DX10 cut, it is not entirely surprising that GM965 won't get there immediately.

It is a programmable architecture, so theoretically you can squeeze a DX10 out of it. But a year or so on from launch, Intel seems incapable of doing so. With every driver promise relating to this chipset not yet fulfilled, you have to wonder if GM965 will ever make the DX10 cut.

On the desktop side, the G965 is being replaced by a G35 with a largely similar GPU, so there is hope that that part will be DX10 someday. Do not hold your breath over the GM965 though but. µ