975X Is The Next BX!
Do you remember the 440BX chipset from Intel? Launched in 1998, it accompanied both the Pentium II (Klamath) and two Pentium III versions (Katmai, Coppermine) until 2000. Even today it is considered one of the firm's most successful core logic products, because motherboards with this particular chipset had a longer life span than those before it.
The situation is different today, as any two year old machine running 2.8 GHz / 2800+ or faster is still good enough for a large portion of application scenarios. In addition, both the types of applications and performance levels failed to increase to the extent that would drive people to replace their systems.
The nice thing about the 975X is the option to divide x16 PCI Express graphics into two slots. Technically, Intel should be able to power both ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI based systems. However, we have no confirmation on either being supported on the 975X.
Even if you might not think you need all the performance that future multi-core products will make possible, it is worth looking at the upcoming 975X chipset. The fact that Intel's roadmap officially declares it as capable of hosting the 2006 desktop dual core Conroe processor is particularly striking. The 975X is meant to power the Presler-based Pentium Extreme Edition 955 at 3.46 GHz and FSB1066; this set of technologies and products will be launched together on November 14th. It is even likely that the 975X might be able to support the quad-core chip that Intel sees at the end of next year in the high-end space, and in the mainstream with 45 nm production in 2007.
