i820 pushed back to week 48; Amador emerges

Almost every day for the last two weeks we've been forced to write a story about Rambus and the famous i820 chip debacle. But we've got a new codename and some hard information. We vowed we wouldn't, today, but a snippet of information came our way which has big implications for the entire industry. First, it now appears that a 2+0 i820 Rambus motherboard, that is a board with two RIMM sockets to hold only two of the costly memory modules, will arrive in week 48. Week 48 is the last week in November. Unfortunately, although that will help save face with Rambus and its cohorts, PC vendors are unlikely to jump up and down in delight. A two RIMM solution is not good enough to satisfy the performance needs of people who want the most out of their motherboards (mobo, see glossary). Although we were fast asleep in our beds when the Intel execs had their conference call with financial analysts last week, we are reliably informed that the said suits (see glossary) told the assembly that the company was looking to an alternative chipset technology from Rambus at the high-end. But, as our friend pointed out to us, wasn't the i840 workstation/server supposed to be that very thing? Meanwhile, we hear tell of a new code name for Intel's new PC-133 solution. Codenamed Amador, it will, as we revealed here, appear in Q1 of next year. And there will be a DDR version in the second half of next year. We will follow this up tomorrow. At Cyberpress time, Intel would only repeat its mantra: "The i820 chipset will be delivered in this quarter". ®