Although information has been floating around for ages and product hit the channel sooner than expected, today is actually the day Intel is officially unleashing their newest mainstream desktop chipset, the P35, a member of the formerly codenamed “Bearlake” family.

In addition to a new Southbridge, the P35 chipset ushers in support for DDR3 system memory in the desktop. It also supports legacy DDR2 memory, depending on the motherboard’s DIMM slot configuration.

We’ve taken a pair of brand-new P35-based motherboards from Asus for a spin with both DDR2 and DDR3 memory installed. As you’ll see, thanks to some relatively high latencies currently, DDR3 doesn’t affect performance all that much. It sure is great for overclocking though!

"Notable data-points on this slide are the future G35, X38 and Eaglelake family of chipsets. The X38 specifically will usher in PCI Express 2.0 serial technology with its bi-directional 5Gb/s SerDes (serializer/de-serializer) technology, essentially doubling available bandwidth over PCI Express 1.0a and 1.1 standards-based products. These 32 PCI Express 2.0 lanes, will also be backwards compatible, auto-negotiating down to PCI Express 1.1 data-rates as needed. When this chipset hits the market, it is bound to be potent. Beyond the X38, Eaglelake, slated for sometime in Q2'08, will bring forth Intel's ICH10 Southbridge and support for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray processing, among other enhancements. "