Due to the SARS Intel scrapped its events in Taiwan and China and also cancelled a number of sessions at IDF Japan, but fortunately we are still hearing quite interesting facts from that side of the world. PC Web Japanese web-site reports that PCI SIG is demonstrating a mainboard based on mysterious Intel Kyrene chipset that was recently mentioned by us in a March 26, 2003 news-story.

As you see from the picture, the mainboard features two PCI-Express slots, 4 PCI slots, a CNR slo, Serial ATA ports as well as all the legacy stuff like COM, LPT and PS/2 ports. PCI-Express x16 slot intended for graphics cards and can provide up to 8.4GB/s bandwidth is currently used by Bus Doctor Rx Analyzer for diagnostic purposes. There is also a PCI-Express x1 slot for expansion cards, but now it is not used. The mainboard also offers Gigabit Ethernet controller what leads us to assume that Intel will offer this technology even for inexpensive solutions next year.

Surprisingly, based on the fact that there is a Thermaltake Volcano 7+ cooling system installed, I can point out that the mainboard is designed to work with Socket 478 processors, but not with Socket T processors to be launched in 2004 (see this and this news-stories for more details). Readers recently told me that the Kyrene was initially intended to succeed the Brookdale (i845-series) in the first quarter of 2003 and to support DDR-II SDRAM memory. Since DDR-II coming to mainstream was delayed a number of times towards the second half of 2004 or even the first half of 2005, Kyrene was also postponed. After all, Kyrene chipset will be unleashed next year and will offer PCI-Express interconnection besides all the other architectural innovations. As in the first quarter of 2003 hardly any Pentium 4 processors could utilise 8.4GB/s bandwidth, I believe that the Kyrene is a single-channel solution with DDR-II 400 and 533MHz support. Considering all the mentioned facts, I can come to a conclusion that Intel Kyrene platform is mostly intended for Celeron and lower-end Pentium 4 processors with 533 and maybe even 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus since Intel will offer its Socket T platform code-named Grantsdale for higher-end Prescott chips and eventually Tejas CPUs. One thing about the Kyrene in its current role I can hardly understand is the absence of integrated graphics core, especially keeping in mind that Intel is serious about grabbing even huger share of graphics market. Maybe Kyrene will be a platform with a not really long life-cycle and made just in order to bring new technologies like DDR-II and PCI-Express to lower-end market segments, earlier than throwing the Socket T and Grantsdale with integrated graphics core down into lower-end mainstream and still offering i865G as a corporate-stable solution in the first half of 2004. There is also a possibility that Kyrene is only used for testing the DDR-II technology as well as PCI-Express interconnection and will never make it to the market.