i845 Is Popular
Almost all manufacturers agree on one point: Intel's 845 chipset alias Brookdale could easily become the 'new BX'. Analysts expect Pentium 4 sales to rise still in fall, since the new chipset supports PC133 SDRAM. The more expensive Rambus DRAM as an expense factor is history, making mainstream systems a good deal cheaper now - but also making them approximately 15% slower than current Pentium 4 systems with dual channel RDRAM.
Many companies were able to show working systems based on i845; an indication that the chipset has reached maturity. In addition, the chipset is also ready to run DDR SDRAM. Some companies are confident to have their final versions ready by the end of July - though Intel is currently not even planning to introduce this faster memory interface in 2001.
There is still hope: VIA is also working on a Pentium 4 chipset with DDR support. As soon as their P4X chipset is finished, Intel may be forced to release their DDR interface as well.