Smorgasbo(a)rd of Intel PCI Express mainboards

SO AS INTEL fixes the Prescott (Walker Bush?), the accompanying "new-generation" boards using the Gransdale and Alderwood chipset are going to surface at the same time. At the high end, where 875P "Canterwood" chipset and Intel's D875PBZ "Bonanza" board reigns right now (at least in Intel's catalogs), the replacement will be the 925X "Alderwood" chipset, and two high-end board varieties, D925XCV and D925XBC. Besides PCI-E 16x instead of AGP 8x, these boards are expected to have multiple PCI-E X1 slots, and few PCI-33 slots as well.

In the midrange, the 865P "Springdale" (PAT-less 875P) chipset and the D865PERL board should be superseded by a whole bunch of different board varieties based on the 915P "Grantsdale" chipset, from D915PBL "upper midrange" board, to "mainstream" D915PCY, D915PCM, D915PGN and D915 PSY. While I'm not clear yet what are precise feature differences between these boards, the expectation that Intel will launch so many boards at the same time signals their interest to, maybe, take a bigger chunk of Taiwanese mainboard maker's pie? I mean, Intel did not have such a sumptuous smorgasbo(a)rd before?

The story continues at the "integrated graphics" low end, where the 865G, or Springdale-G, gets replaced with 915G chipset. Again, there will be four new boards in this segment initially, some with PCI-E x16 for optional card graphics, others without it. They are expected to be called D915GEV, D915GUX, D915GAV and, yes, D915GAG - the last one obviously having a clear message to the "journalist community" in its name...

However, at the very very low end, where 845 / 848 chipsets are present now, Intel will move in with the 865P, enabling dual-channel memory even for the least expensive PCs - the new board, D865PCD, is expected to take care of those Prescotts with 533 MHz FSB, still in the 478-pin package.

So, as Intel rolls out this massive PCI-Express board assault, where does it leave PCI? While there is no absolute surety that, on the server front, PCI-Express can beat PCI-X DDR in performance, I guess that, on the desktop, three PCI-33 slots, all sharing the same 133 MB/s pipe (a shared bus), would definitely be beaten by three PCI-E X1 slots, each having its own X1133 MB/s serial point-to-point path. Still, let's see how the actual PCI-E boards perform - I am more curious on the real-life performance difference between PCI-E x16 and AGP 8x for high-speed 3-D graphics.

Anyway, Intel and others will still keep a couple of "classic' PCI slots on most of these boards, as zillions of cards won't be migrated overnight. Or, maybe, the added space needed for ever-larger heat sinks and boiling-hot VRM circuitry for the Prescott, Tejas etc will finally require even the PCI slot space to go? µ

* APOLOGIES. In the first published version of this article there were references to PCI Express X2. This should have been PCI Express X1. All references have now been replaced with the correct version. Nova.