Intel P35 "Bearlake" Chipset Performance Preview

Intel has always been one of the biggest powers in the CPU market. They've been so dominant due to the fact they have had their own platform to build on. Intel produces its own chipsets for the processors, unlike AMD who until recently had to rely on third party companies to build chipsets for their platforms. It has brought them down a few times - Slot A was the biggest wait fest we ever had to endure.

Not only has Intel got its own platform but we have seen that Intel has put a lot of technologies into their chipsets ahead of other companies. Intel's 9xx series was first to market with PCI Express, Intel also was the first to introduce DDR-2 memory into its chipsets which is something that AMD said it wouldn't ever do, but still has.

While Intel does charge more for its chipsets, their development department does do a lot of work alongside their partners. While they have made some mistakes in the past (but we think just about every chipset manufacturer has had a few bad products) their current line has seen nothing but success.

Now it's time for Intel to start on its next generation of chipsets to support their upcoming Dual Core and Quad Core processors later this year and next such as Yorkfield and Wolfdale. The processors are based on 45nm technology and faster FSB and more onboard cache. These new chipsets are now dubbed the "3" series with new naming and features for each and are all based around the new Bearlake architecture. Today we are previewing the mid-range P35 chipset in the form of a pre-release product from one of our partners.

EDITOR NOTE - The following is a PREVIEW of a product which is still in development stages using non-final hardware and first revision silicon. Take this into consideration when reading and looking at our benchmarks.