The Taiwanese mainboard manufacturers report that according to Intel, they would start shipping their new Intel 845 B-Step chipset supporting not only PC133 SDRAM (like the original i845) but also PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAM, as to Digitimes.
The curious thing about it is the fact that i845 with DDR SDRAM support will be presented not as a new chipset (aka Brookdale-D or i845-D), but as an enhanced revision of the original i845 (as we have actually suspected it to). As a result, i845 B-Step will be selling at the same price as i845, i.e.$42 per unit in 10,000-unit quantities. It automatically implies that i845 should very soon disappear from the market at all. The share of the renewed i845 chipset is expected not to exceed the 10% bar in November, but by the end of the year this share will reach 50% and next year, this number will grow up to 100%. So, those of you who decided to deal with a slower and more expensive i845 seem to have been in a great hurry with buying it. We only hope that there will be not too many of them among you, because we have already advised you not to do it. :-)
i845-D B-Step based mainboards from the first and second tier manufacturers will be shown at the upcoming COMDEX in mid November.