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07/03
VIA PT800 for the Pentium 4 processor was released on July 8th. The PT800 chipset is the successor to the P4X400 chipset, providing support for single channel DDR400, Hyperthreading and an 800Mhz FSB speed. PT800 also includes VIA's VT8237 South Bridge, featuring 2xSATA channels with RAID 0, 1 and 0+1, VIA Vinyl 8 channel audio and 8xUSB 2 ports.
SiS 755 chipset, for the AMD-64 processors, was released on July 8th. SiS 755 feature support for AGP 8X and connects to the SiS 963 South Bridge through SiS' 1066MB/s MuTIOL link which offers support for ATA133, 2xSATA150 ports with RAID 0 and 1, 8 x USB2.0 ports and 5.1 surround sound.
ALi M1683 chipset for the Intel P4 platform is expected was released on July 8th. The M1683 provides support for DDR400 and PC133 SDRAM, AGP8X and an 800Mhz FSB speed.
Intel Price cuts for Xeon processors occurred on July 13th. See the Intel CPU Prices page for additional information.
Intel Xeon (Prestonia 1Mb) was released on July 14th. This processor is the first DP Xeon to be released with 1Mb of L3 cache.
nVidia Quadro 3000 & 3000G were released on July 22nd. The Quadro 3000/G GPUs are based around the NV35 core found in the GeForce FX 5900/Ultra. Like the GF FX 5900, the Quadro 3000/G features a 256-bit memory interface providing 27.2GB/s of memory bandwidth and interfaces to 256MB of . The 3000G additionally features a Genlock/Framelock which allows applications to synchronize video refresh and buffer swaps between multiple systems.
Microsoft DirectX 9.0b was released on July 23rd. DirectX 9.0b is a security enhanced revision DirectX 9.0a, featuring a security patch which prevents an attacker from executing code on your system through the use of MIDI files.
AMD Price cuts for Athlon MP and Opteron processors occurred on July 28th. See the AMD CPU Prices page for additional information.
08/03
AMD Opteron 246, running at 2Ghz, was released on August 5th.
SiS 741 chipset for the AMD platform was released on August 12th. The SiS 741 is based around the SiS748 chipset, but additionally contains on-board Real256E graphics. The Real256E graphics core supports the DirectX 7 featureset. The SiS 741 will come with SiS' 964 South Bridge, which features 8xUSB2, 2xSATA150 (RAID0, 1 and JBOD), 5.1 sound, a V90 modem and Ethernet capabilities.
Intel i848P chipset was (kind of!) released on August 13th. The i848P is the successor to the i845PE, but is based around a slightly cut down version of the i865PE core. The i848 supports single channel (not dual channel) DDR400, an 800Mhz FSB speed, AGP 8X, HyperThreading and the CSA Bus for Gigabit LAN.
Intel Price cuts for Celeron processors occurred August 24th. See the Intel CPU Prices page for additional information.
AMD Price cuts occurred August 25th. See the AMD CPU Prices page for additional information.
09/03
Intel Low Voltage Itanium 2 'Deerfield' 1.4 & 1Ghz IA64 CPUs were released on September 8th. Deerfield is based around the 0.13 micron Madison core, but contains a smaller 1.5Mb L3 cache and consumes around half the power of Madison (around 62 watts at 1Ghz). Deerfield is Intel's first 'value' IA-64 processor and will allow Dual Processor operation.
AMD Opteron 146, running at 2Ghz, was released on September 8th.
AMD Opteron 846, running at 2Ghz, was released on September 8th.
XGI Volari V3 GPU was announced on September 15th. The Volari V3 is DirectX 8.1 compliant, features 2 pixel pipelines and runs at a core clock speed of 300Mhz and a memory clock of 300Mhz DDR.
XGI Volari V5 series of GPUs was announced on September 15th. The Volari V5 is a fully DirectX 9 compliant part with 4 pixel pipelines and comes in three varieties - the Volari V5, V5 Ultra and Duo V5 Ultra. The Duo version is a Dual GPU design, with 2xVolari V5 Ultra GPUs on a single board - rather like ATI's Rage Fury MAXX. Each of the V5 GPUs will be available with either DDR or DDR-II SDRAM.
Volari V5 - 300Mhz core, 325Mhz DDR or 450Mhx DDR-II.
Volari V5 Ultra - 350Mhz core, 375Mhz DDR or 500Mhz DDR-II.
Volari V5 Duo Ultra - 2 x Volari V5 Ultra GPUs.
XGI Volari V8 series of GPUs was announced on September 15th. The Volari V8 is a fully DirectX 9 compliant part with 8 pixel pipelines. Like the V5 it is available in three varieties - the Volari V8, V8 Ultra and Duo V8 Ultra, the Duo version being a Dual GPU design. Each of the V8 GPUs will be available with either DDR or DDR-II SDRAM.
Volari V8 - 300Mhz core, 325Mhz DDR or 450Mhx DDR-II.
Volari V8 Ultra - 350Mhz core, 375Mhz DDR or 500Mhz DDR-II.
Volari V8 Duo Ultra - 2 x Volari V8 Ultra GPUs.
Initial benchmarking of the Volari V8 Duo Ultra shows that its performance lies somewhere between the mid range Radeon 9600XT/GeForce FX 5700 Ultra GPUs and the high end Radeon 9800XT/GeForce FX 5950 Ultra GPUs. In fact, most benchmarks show it performing nearly exactly half way between these mid range and high end cards.
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition was announced on September 16th at 3.2Ghz, with general availability occurring on November 4th. The P4 Extreme Edition is based around the Xeon MP's Gallatin core and features an 800Mhz FSB speed, 512Kb of L2 cache and 2Mb of on-die L3 cache. This processor contains 108 million transistors - nearly double the number found in Northwood.
Intel Mobile P4 HT, running at 2.66, 2.8, 3.06 and 3.2Ghz with a 533Mhz FSB, are the first mobile P4s with Hyperthreading technology. These processors were released on September 21st
AMD Athlon 64 3200+, the 64-bit successor to the Athlon XP running at 2Ghz, was released on September 22nd. The Athlon 64 (non-FX) series is the desktop version of Sledgehammer (Opteron), featuring a very similar featureset. The Athlon 64 is a single processor only CPU (like the Opteron 1xx series) and features an integrated 64-bit memory controller (Opteron is 128-bit), supporting up to PC3200 Unbuffered DDR SDRAM (Opteron supports PC2700 Buffered DIMMs). The Athlon 64 also contains 'Cool'n'Quiet' dynamic clock frequency and core voltage technology to throttle the clock frequency back when the CPU is under light load in order to reduce power requirements and noise (by enabling the CPU fan to run slower due to a reduction in core temperature). Cool'n'Quiet allows clock frequencies to be changed in steps of 200Mhz, with the Athlon 64 3200+ being able to run at speeds between 800Mhz and 2Ghz with a core voltage as low as 1.38v. This technology requires the installation of software along with motherboard and BIOS support. The Athlon 64 is built around a 754 pin package, with the reduced pin count being due to the reduced width of the memory controller.
Initial benchmarks of the Athlon 64 3200+ show is to be an excellent performer in Office, Gaming and Workstation environments, bettering the 3.2Ghz P4 (even Extreme Edition) in many benchmarks and only losing to the Athlon 64-FX series.
AMD Athlon 64 FX-51, the 64-bit workstation version of the Athlon 64 running at 2.2Ghz, was released on September 22nd. The Athlon 64 FX series is currently physically identical to the Opteron 1xx series, featuring support for a single CPU and a 128-bit memory interface. Unlike the Opteron 1xx series, however, the Athlon 64-FX series offers support for Buffered PC3200 memory (note that it doesn't support the more standard Unbuffered DDR like the non-FX series).
Initial benchmarks show the 2.2Ghz Athlon 64 FX-51 offers slightly worse performance than the 3.2Ghz Pentium 4 in Content creation activities, but generally better than even the 3.2Ghz P4 Extreme Edition in Office, Gaming and Workstation environments. The performance of 64-bit applications is expected to be between 10 and 20% faster than 32-bit applications.
AMD Mobile Athlon 64 was released on September 22nd. The Mobile Clawhammer will be based around the Desktop Clawhammer.
Intel Celeron 2.7Ghz was released on September 24th.
ATI Radeon 9800XT (R360) was released on September 30th. The R360 is heavily based around the R350 (Radeon 9800) core, but contains optimisations to allow higher clock speeds (412Mhz core & 730Mhz memory) and a built-in thermal diode to allow dynamic overclocking through the Catalyst drivers version 3.8 and above. With the Catalyst 3.8 driver's 'Overdrive' facility the core clock can be increased up to 440Mhz and will never drop below the rated 412Mhz core clock speed. The Radeon 9800XT is available with 256Mb of memory and retails for $499.
ATI Radeon 9600XT (RV360) was announced on September 30th, with availability expected in November. The RV360 is a higher clocked version of the RV350 core with the Radeon 9600XT offering a core clock speed of 500Mhz and a memory clock of 650Mhz.
ATI Radeon 9600SE was announced on September 30th. The Radeon 9600SE features a core clock of 325Mhz and a memory clock of 400Mhz and interfaces to memory over a 64-bit bus.
ATI Radeon 9200SE was announced on September 30th. The Radeon 9200SE features a core clock of 200Mhz and a memory clock of 333Mhz.
Q3/03
AMD Athlon XP (Thorton), the successor to the Thoroughbred-B core, is expected to be released in Q3. Thorton, like Thoroughbred, is expected to have a 256Kb L2 cache and be built on a 0.13 micron process. However, it is likely that Thorton will just be a Barton with half the L2 cache disabled.
Intel Banias 1.7Ghz is expected to be released in Q3.
Intel Banias 1.1Ghz (LV) & 900Mhz (ULV) are expected to be released in Q3. Note LV stands for Low Voltage, with ULV being Ultra Low Voltage.
Intel i848GV chipset is expected to be released in Q3. The i848GV is based around the i848P, but will feature on-board graphics and do away with the AGP8X port.
