INTEL kicks Ati out the window

Nov 16, 2006 13:35 GMT  ·  By

In June 2006, INTEL presented its motherboard roadmap. Among other future chipsets such as Bearlake, a board featuring Ati Xpress chipset was also present. D103GGV Gem Valley was due to come out in the autumn of 2006. Not only it didn't but it also vanished from INTEL's roadmap, probably because of the fact that Ati had been bought by AMD.

That wasn't the only Ati powered product that was mentioned in the roadmap. Oddly, another Xpress chipset motherboard, the D102GGC2 Grant County 2 remained in business with some boards even being shipped. But it seems that INTEL is concentrating upon filling the gaps by using mainly INTEL chipsets rather than ones coming from other manufacturers. I think that the Ati experience has brought enough problems for INTEL, at least when thinking about their roadmap but I guess that they may have found a solution to that. And the solution is SiS.

Intel Desktop Board D201GLY Little Valley is currently expected to be powered by a SiS 662 chipset and use a mini ITX form factor. This will probably remain the single "non-INTEL" product ever to remain on their roadmaps. As SiS 662 is already out for 3 months, the first boards are expected to come out in the 2nd quarter of 2007, provided INTEL finishes the design. And that may cause some delays since INTEL is only in the early preliminary stages with this board's layout. It will probably come out at the same time with the first Bearlake samples.