Intel Grantsdale pegged for 29 March '04 launch

Alderwood too

'Grantsdale', Intel's next generation of Pentium 4 chipset, will debut on 29 March. So will 'Alderwood', the successor to the current i875 chipset.

So claims French site x86 Secret, citing numerous sources.

Grantsdale is the follow up to the i865 family, and like those chipsets will be offered in discrete and integrated forms, dubbed 'P' and 'G', respectively. Both will add dual-channel DDR 2 SDRAM and PCI Express support. The P version is expected to support both 533MHz and 800MHz effective bit rate frontside buses, and will be capable of interface with upcoming 775-pin 'Prescott' Pentium 4s.

The G release adds the next generation of Intel's Extreme Graphics engine. Sub-sets of this chipset, GV and GL, will ship without PCI Graphics card support. The latter, a Celeron-targeted part, will only support a 533MHz FSB.

Little is known about Alderwood's feature-set, but the addition of the 775-pin interface, DDR 2 and PCI Express to what the i875 offers seems most likely.

Many if not all of these chipsets are likely to feature Intel's new ICH6 South Bridge, which will provide four Serial ATA ports with RAID support; a single parallel ATA bus supporting two devices; the company's next-generation audio system, 'Azalia'; Gigabit Ethernet; and PCI Express for other add-in cards. ®