Intel Eaglelake plans unveiled

Eaglelake spawns the usual P, G and Q variants for consumer and business platforms. The Eaglelake-family features support for Intel Penryn-family, Yorkfield and Wolfdale, and other processors with front-side buses up to 1333 MHz. Intel continues to equip the Eaglelake-family with DDR3 and DDR2 memory controllers. DDR3-1333 and DDR2-800 are still the memory speeds of choice with Eaglelake. Eaglelake also introduces PCIe 2.0 for discrete graphics to the mainstream with all variants. Strangely, PCIe signaling on the south bridge is not PCIe 2.0 compliant.

Intel pairs the Eaglelake-family with a new ICH10 south bridge. Intel has put the ICH10 on a diet. ICH10 only provides Serial ATA, PCIe, USB and high-definition audio – essentially legacy free. New to the ICH10 south bridge are FIS-based port multipliers. Multiple SATA devices can piggyback off a single SATA port with FIS-based port multipliers, without sacrificing I/O performance.