Today at the Computex trade show in Taipei, Intel's 3 Series chipset, formerly codenamed "Bearlake" was unveiled. The 3 Series chipset will support PCI Express 2.0, Intel Turbo Memory, DDR2 memory up to 800MHz, or DDR3 memory up to 1333MHz; the chips are designed to work with current CPUs or the forthcoming 45-nm dual-core 'Penryn' processors due later this year.
The first chipsets from the series, the P35 and G33, have been shipping since April, while the G35 Express and enthusiast X38 (with dual graphics card support) will start shipping within 90 days. With over 100 motherboard designs planned, Intel expects the new chipsets to catch on quickly.
"The Intel 3 Series chipsets lay the foundation for an exciting, media-rich experience for today's systems and those that arrive later this year," Intel executive vice president Sean Maloney said.
Intel had other announcements to make including a project to develop a range of low-cost mobile PCs for the education market in collaboration with Asustek, with one model to sell for less than $200 as a part of Intel's "World Ahead" program - a competitor of Negroponte's OLPC project.
Intel Core 2 Extreme mobile processor was also announced which is set to arrive during the third quarter and, according to Maloney, will be the world's fastest "by a large margin" while still including power-saving features.