As we have already told you numerous times, three leading chipset makers are going to unveil their dual-channel DDR SDRAM Pentium 4 core-logic devices by the fourth quarter this year. These days Intel, VIA and SiS are sampling their future products and for us it will be useful to summarise everything we know about them so far.

The first one to come is Intel`s Granite Bay also known at the E7205. It will support 533MHz system bus, AGP 8x and dual-channel PC1600/2100 DDR SDRAM memory. Intel decided not to implement PC2700 (DDR333) support this time, as peak bandwidth offered by dual-channel PC2100 is 4.2GB per second, exactly equals to 533MHz Quad-pumped Pentium 4 bus. The North Bridge (or MCH) feature ICH4 I/O controller, supporting USB 2.0 and other necessary features. It was reported that several mainboard manufacturers will release E7205 based products in October, targeting workstations and entry-level servers. It seems that E7205 will be a perfect companion to Intel`s up and coming Pentium 4 3.06GHz with HyperThreading technology enabled.

As a true, but not very lucky, player of this market, VIA also prepares its answer to Intel. It will be called P4X600 and it is going to have even more advanced features against the rival. The P4X600 offers 533MHz processor bus, AGP 8x, dual-channel PC2100 (DDR266) and PC2700 (DDR333) support. As all latest chipsets from the Taipei-based chipset-maker, it utilises VIA VT8235 South Bridge, bringing us USB 2.0 and ATA-133. Mainboards based on VIA P4X600 will appear in the fourth quarter this year.

The remaining SiS655 resembles its rival from VIA quite a lot: 533MHz Quad-pumped FSB, PC2100 (DDR266) and PC2700 (DDR333) support and AGP 8x graphics bus. Given that all the latest chipsets from SiS worked fine with DDR400 memory, we can expect this one to provide it “unofficially”. Taking into account the timeframes when the SiS655 is expected on the market, we can anticipate it to utilise either SiS963 I/O Controller, supporting USB 2.0, ATA-133 and IEEE1394, or SiS963B with ADSL, 802.11b and several other additions.

There is no need to be a prophet to draw the situation on the market in the fourth quarter. VIA will be narrowly presented by mainboard manufacturers due to the absence of license from Intel, while SiS will be adopted greatly as their offering is going to be fast and legal. Provided that there will be a big demand on higher performing Pentium 4 chipsets, Intel may push its Granite Bay to enter high-performance PC segment in order not to leave this sector for SiS.