As the world waits for AMD's Athlon XP 2800+ to hit retail shelves, which I've been told will happen early next year, I can't help but wonder when we'll see the eighth generation Hammer family. Originally slated for release late in 2002, processors built on the K8 architecture will feature an integrated memory controller, making the job of chipset manufacturers a little easier.
Several manufacturers have already vocalized plans to support the Hammer. VIA's upcoming K8HTA (K8T400), for instance, will support AGP 8x, Serial ATA, and integrated Ethernet. SiS will take that one step further with its 755 chipset, possibly sporting integrated graphics and IEEE 1394, in addition to AGP 8x and Serial ATA. Acer Labs supposedly has a chipset in the works, though it doesn't appear to be nearly as feature-complete as VIA or SiS' products. Of course, AMD will have its own 8000 series chipset ready at launch time, just as it did with the 750 and 760 chipsets. AMD's solution adds PCI-X support, though it neglects Serial ATA and FireWire. Finally, NVIDIA will offer its own nForce-derived Hammer chipset, which I'd expect to perform well considering NVIDIA's experience with Hyper Transport.
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Several manufacturers have already vocalized plans to support the Hammer. VIA's upcoming K8HTA (K8T400), for instance, will support AGP 8x, Serial ATA, and integrated Ethernet. SiS will take that one step further with its 755 chipset, possibly sporting integrated graphics and IEEE 1394, in addition to AGP 8x and Serial ATA. Acer Labs supposedly has a chipset in the works, though it doesn't appear to be nearly as feature-complete as VIA or SiS' products. Of course, AMD will have its own 8000 series chipset ready at launch time, just as it did with the 750 and 760 chipsets. AMD's solution adds PCI-X support, though it neglects Serial ATA and FireWire. Finally, NVIDIA will offer its own nForce-derived Hammer chipset, which I'd expect to perform well considering NVIDIA's experience with Hyper Transport.
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