AMD Chipsets long in the tooth....
They need a new chipset for the Opteron line, and fast. Native SATA, USB 2.0, PCI-Express, etc need to be included to compete with Intel's new, albiet buggy, server chipsets for Nocona.

AMD can not sit on its hands and wait for Nforce4. They have proven that they can make a stable chipset with the 761 and current 8000 series... so why not throw some money into an upgrade?

Is ServerWorks working on a chipset/board for the Opteron? That would be great news too.

It doesn't look like AMD is a long term chipset provider. They do the initial designs, but depend on third parties to carry on.

Actually, the 761 had issues...(1) was the USB issue that was re-solved with a revision and (2) due to the way the PCI buses are arranaged, it doesn't provide sufficient bandwidth for some high end capture cards. (Canopus does not recommend you use the old 761 chipset based mobos with their cards).

Of course, the current 8000 series has no problems. Nothing like a 2nd attempt to correct your past mistakes. :)

Don't worry...The Nforce 4 is coming closer than you think *wink wink*. That's why AMD doesn't need to refresh their chipset line.