Our sources in Chaintech informed us about the company’s plans to launch a range of products for Intel Pentium 4 this year. The first thing to stress is that Chaintech contemplates no mainboards based on i850. We believe it to be a wise decision. Boards built on this core logic don’t look attractive for buyers, since they require using RDRAM, which is quite pricy. Besides, they say its aura seems eerie to some superstitious users. :) Thus, Chaintech has made up its mind to start its Pentium 4 line with mainboards based on Brookdale. All of its boards for Pentium 4 will be originally equipped with Socket 478, forereaching the appearance of CPUs built on Willamette core (scheduled for August) and Northwood (somewhere in the fourth quarter 2001), that are meant for this socket.
Now you may scan the following details:

• 9BJA is the first mainboard by Chaintech based on Brookdale (i845). As long as it comes out in September, it is supposed to work with PC133 SDRAM only (there are three DIMM slots for that). The board will also feature one 4x AGP slot, six PCI and one CNR slot. As an optional detail they may add a six-channel PCI sound controller by Cmedia.
• 9BJD is the second mainboard based on Brookdale core logic, which will shift the previous one in February 2002. By this time Brookdale will already get DDR SDRAM support; therefore in contrast to its predecessor 9BJD will have two DDR DIMM slots. The remaining specs are the same as previous.
• 9VJD will be based on a compromising VIA PX266. So, it must let us use DDR SDRAM with Pentium 4 in the very end of this year. Alongside with three DDR DIMM slots, the board will have five PCI, one AGP and one ACR slot. Optional integrated sound by Cmedia is also included.

Apart from the above listed boards, Chaintech is about to manufacture a number of ATX solutions for systems integrators. Remarkable products are 9SJD built on SiS645, 9BID built on Brookdale supporting DDR SDRAM and 9VID built on VIA PX266. However, we are not likely to see all these novelties earlier than next year.