Intel Announces 3 Series Chipset

The company's latest chipset is built to support 45nm processors and has a number of features for enhanced media playback.

Intel’s executive vice president Sean Maloney took the wraps off the company’s latest chipset on Tuesday morning, at the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan. The 3 Series chipset, formerly codenamed "Bearlake," will support Intel’s latest 45nm Penryn processors, which will come out later this year.

The 3 Series chipset will support DDR2 memory up to 800MHz, or DDR3 memory up to 1333MHz, along with support for Intel’s own "Turbo Memory," which is supposed to improve application load times and boot times. For the latest generation of graphics cards, a PCI Express 2.0 connection is also included.

For computers on the lower end without 3rd-party graphics adapters, the Intel G33 or G35 Express chipsets will come with integrated graphics. Unlike the cards they replace, these integrated graphics controllers will cater less to gaming and more to media playback. Intel’s Clear Video Technology is supposed to enhance video clarity, and HD DVD as well as Blu-ray disc playback are supported with compatible hardware. The chipsets will also be compatible with DirectX 10, making it possible to run Windows Vista Aero on low-end machines without installing a discrete graphics card. Intel’s High Definition Audio] further rounds out the chipset’s media prowess with 7.1-speaker surround sound.

The G33 and P35 Express chipsets have been available since April, and the Q33 and Q35 just began shipping. The G35 Express and enthusiast X38 (with dual graphics card support) will be released within 90 days.