New 500 series models power Intel chipsets

Intel has unveiled six new 90nm processors to power its new 915 and 925 chipsets, previously known as Grantsdale and Alderwood, and revealed their pricing.

The 915 and 925 are available at $41 and $50 respectively when bought in lots of a thousand, although the 915 is available without an integrated graphics chip for $37 (under the same terms).

Five new Pentium 4s running at 2.8, 3.0, 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6GHz - and called 520, 530, 540, 550 and 560 respectively in line with Intel's new naming policy - are being produced in volume. Prices range from $178 to $637 when bought by the thousand.

All the processors have 800MHz front side bus and hyper threading to allow data streams to be run in series. They also carry 1MB of level 2 (L2) cache.

A 90nm Pentium 4 Extreme Edition is also planned, running at 3.4GHz with 512KB L2 cache. Details of the first models to use the new architectures are expected from PC makers such as Dell later today.

The 915 chipset replaces Intel's current 815 line, while the 925 will take the place of the 875 chipset, which is currently being phased out. It is thought that both can be enabled for 64-bit computing, but Intel has not confirmed this.

Both the 915 and 925 chipsets feature Intel High Definition Audio supporting 7.1 surround sound, as well as an integrated graphics processor that will eliminate the need for most users to purchase a dedicated graphics card.

Martin Reynolds, vice president at analyst Gartner, predicted that the new chipsets would have limited impact on the marketplace despite being a big move forward.

"The home user needs these incentives to keep buying, but it's not going to make a surprising difference [to Intel's sales]," he said.

The 915 and 925 are the first chipsets to support PCI Express, a new faster standard for peripheral cards such as for video or sound.

These speeds are currently only required by gaming graphics cards, but will enable future applications such as digital video editing.