***************************************THIS IS AN EXCERPT*******************************
Looking around....:
By Sebastian Pop, Technology Editor
April 8th, 2010, 10:11 GMT
Intel's Sandy Bridge CPU Needs New Chipset
*******************************EXCERPT********************************
6 Series chipset has no USB 3.0 support
When planning to make and release a new central processing unit, chip makers have to decide whether the new CPU will be compatible with existing sockets or if its performance advantage is high enough to justify the making of a special chipset. This is, no doubt, the same dilemma that has plagued
Intel in the development of the Sandy Bridge micro-architecture and the so-called 6 Series chipset. Until recently, end-users might have been hoping for a future where the new 32nm Sandy bridge chips would work on existing motherboards. Unfortunately, recent rumors seem to, once and for all, crush these hopes.
According to the folks over at
Fudzilla, the 32nm Sandy Bridge chips will, indeed, be designed for socket 1155
motherboards. This suggests that the 6 Series chipset will be designed with this socket if it hopes to provide the new CPU with a platform.
For consumers interested in upgrading their configurations, this means that they will need a new
motherboard to start. The report also points at a rather unfortunate drawback of the new core logic. Intel supposedly told its partners that there would be no native support for USB 3.0, only for up to 14 USB 2.0 ports. Of course, there is always the consolation that compatibility with the next-generation standard will still be implementable, via an external chip.