Intel's Northwood mobo plans leak

This is how it looks. In Q3 (this quarter), the D850GB supports Rambus memory, ATX, PGA423, A/Lan or CNR. The D815EEA2 is a 815E/P SDRAM motherboard, supporting ATX, integrated AGP, A/LAN or A/CNR. The D915EFV is a similar design but comes in a micro ATX size.

Towards the end of Q3 and in Q4, we will see the RDRAM based D850MV, ATX, m478, 4XAGP, the RDRAM based D850MD, which is a micro ATX variant, the D845WN - the 845 SDRAM chipset (Brookdale) with ATX, m478 pin support, and 4X AGP, as well as the D845HV, a micro ATX version.

In Q4 we will see Englewood, an 815G/EG supporting, we believe the Celeron, with integrated audio and a micro ATX size.

That will be closely followed by the DDR mobos codenamed Billings and Pendleton, part of the 845 family.

Tulloch comes later next year.

The Maryville is a Pentium 4 Northwood ATX motherboard using the 850 chipset, socket 478, with dual Rambus channel support, ATA 100, 3.2GH/sec bandwidth, integrated 10/100 LAN MAC or HPNA MAc. It has a 1.5 volt AGP 4X connector, up to seven USB 1.1 ports, and five USB 2.0 ports.

The RDRAM memory can be expanded up to 2GB, and it will include AC97 audio, and Intel's 82562ET Lan support.

It will have five PCI, 1 AGP and 1CNR slots, and on the back panel will include two serial and one parallel port, triple stack audio, and mouse keyboard. The BIOS is Intel's Rapid BIOS and include Express BIOS update support.

Medford is also a Northwood board for the Pentium 4, but is a cheaper option.

Winnipeg-ATX is a low cost 478 Intel motherboard with six PCI slots, 478 pin support, and supporting SDRAM PC-133 EC, or non-ECC.

Havre is a micro ATX Pentium 4 Intel motherboard that uses the 845 chipset, with up to 3GB of PC-133 SDRAM memory supported.

La Intella is positioning its own motherboards as "rock solid" tested for WinXP, supporting Intel Rapid BIOS boot and XP in under 20 seconds, instantly available PC waking from its deep sleep state, and including SoundMAX with SPX which will give six channel audio with an optional CNR card.

One very interesting graphic in the presentation we saw, shows the mix of 423/478 pins during the rest of this year.

478 pins "will ramp fast" in Q4, but in Q3 will represent only 38 per cent or so of processors. In Q4 that figure will soar to around 75 per cent, and reach just under 90 per cent in Q1 of 2002.

That means people are going to have to make some very careful buying decisions, as we pointed out elsewhere earlier in the week. µ