The world's largest supplier of computer chips Intel Corp. is reportedly planning to introduce its new chipsets that feature PCI Express interconnection, but lack DDR2 support. The introduction may emphasize lukewarm welcome for DDR2 SDRAM by the industry and Intel's desire to improve its positioning on the chipset market.

Intel's forthcoming i915PL and i915GL chipsets will support dual-channel PC3200 (400MHz) memory only, instead of supporting both DDR and DDR2 which is a standard for the i915P and i915G chipsets, but will still boast with support for LGA775 processors and PCI Express interconnection, according to a DigiTimes report. Santa Clara, California-based Intel reportedly plans to introduce the 915PL and 915GL chipsets on January, 22, 2005.

Intel's latest family of core-logic sets from Intel, such as i915G and i915P, originally brought dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM memory, PCI Express x16 and x1 lanes for next-generation add-in cards, the industry's first integrated graphics core with DirectX 9.0 support ?Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (i915G only), 4 Serial ATA-150 ports with RAID support, High-Definition 7.1 Audio as well as some other important capabilities. Due to relatively high DDR2 memory pricing, in order to allow its customers to make their new systems more affordable, Intel's i915G and i915P memory controllers also supported dual-channel DDR memory, which is not as expensive as DDR2. Still, Intel charged its partners certain extra sums of money per every chipset for DDR2 support.

It is currently unclear, whether in addition to the lack of DDR2 there are other limitations in the 915GL and 915PL chipsets.

The list prices of the i915PL and i915GL products are reported to be about 30% lower compared to the pricing of the i915P and i915G products. The assumption means that the 915GL may cost around $27, while the 915PL may cost around $23, compared to $33 and $38 for i915P and i915G respectively, in the second half of January, 2005.

The introduction can further increase pressure on Taiwan-based chipset designers VIA Technologies and Silicon Integrated Systems Corp., whose revenues have been dropping for a while.

Officials for Intel Corp. did not comment on the story.