14 DAY TRIAL // Even though a little more than three months are left until Intel presumably plans to introduce its first processors based on the 22nm Ivy Bridge design, the Z77 chipset that will host the desktop version of these chips is already complete.
This means that the Intel Z77 PCH (Platform Controller Hub) design was finalized and that the silicon is ready for mass production according to some unnamed motherboard makers cited by Fudzilla.
The Z77 is the most advanced chipset in the 7-series Panther Point PCH range, which includes a total of six products, three targeting the consumer space while the remaining three have the enterprise market in their sights.
The biggest change introduced by Intel with these new chipsets is the native support for USB 3.0, as previously motherboard makers had to rely on third party ICs in order to add this functionality to their solutions.
With the Panther Point chipset however they will get native support for a total of four such ports, which can be joined by as much as 14 regular USB 2.0 ports.
The rest of the features that are found inside Intel’s 7-series PCH controllers are largely similar to those of their 6-series counterparts, but the Z77 does allow for a more flexible PCI Express configuration.
According to some leaked info, the 16 PCI Express 3.0 lanes available in the Ivy Bridge processors can be split by this controller chip not only into a pair of x8 links, but also in an x8 and dual x4 links, all supporting PCIe Gen 3.0.
From what we know at this point in time, Intel is expected to launch the Maho Bay platform, comprised of the 7-sereis Panther Point chipsets and desktop Ivy Bridge CPUs, on April 8. On the desktop front, the initial launch will include only Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, while Core i3 chips will arrive later in 2012.