14 DAY TRIAL // Intel is using a tried and true approach to the entry and middle level mainboard market. While Intel does not produce too many motherboards, it does produce some of the chipsets required to run these motherboards and always those chipsets were much better than anything else competitors could offer.
For those users who want a fast processor and a good chipset, but are not really interested in the gaming side of the computer industry, there is a solution to save some money. The solution is not new and Intel is exploiting it as much as it can, maybe too much in this particular case.
By integrating a minimal graphics processor inside the chipset along some other capabilities, most chipset manufacturers, including Intel, realized that they can cover the office and similar markets at lower cost both for them and for customers. All good until now, but a problem does arise. Motherboard manufacturers are anything but happy with Intel's current integrated graphics processors (IGPs for short), as they claim the said IGPs are having very low video performance. Intel on the other side claims that the new video and chipset drivers will solve all performance problems. These new drivers are aimed at the G965, GM965 and G35 chipsets in order to enable support for Vertex Shader 3.0 in August. "Two new drivers, 15.6 and 14.31, will be introduced to support Windows Vista and XP respectively", according to the Web site Digitimes.
Intel says that these new drivers will offer support for Shader Model 4.0 and will make the last generation of games like Stalker, UT2004 and Guild Wars at least playable. According to the site PCRetail "Motherboard makers in Taiwan are increasingly concerned that the drivers still will not support many popular games. Rather than openly talk about their displeasure they are talking to magazines. The G35 is only "hardware ready", though compatibility is claimed with DirectX 10."