VIA's got another integrated graphics chipset for the P4 on the way: the P4M800 Pro. It'll be bundled with the VT8237 that I've grown to despise.

"VIA Technologies today announced the VIA P4M800 Pro chipset is currently shipping to motherboard vendors and motherboards featuring the chipset are expected to be available soon. The IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) solution supports the Intel Pentium 4 platform and will be targeted for the mainstream and fast-growing entry-level PC markets."

You may have heard of VIIV from some of the IDF coverage that went on last week. Well, the Designtechnica crew delves a bit deeper into what VIIV brings to the table and what this shift by Intel means to the rest of the hardware developers.

"Since the beginning of the PC, we have measured performance by MHz; Intel is signaling that is about to end, however, as they focus on adding cores rather than just speed to increase performance. They are currently selling two core products and indicated they have four core products in the development process, with more and more cores likely to follow."

Heh... this oughta be interesting... AMD's apparently running several ads that challenge Intel to a dual-core performance show-down. Think Intel will accept the challenge?

"Promoters could call it 'Silicon Smackdown.' Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices on Aug. 22 threw down the gauntlet to perennial rival Intel. AMD is taking out full-page advertisements in several major daily newspapers that offer to duel the world's largest chipmaker to see which company's chips perform the best."

The TechReport's got the best info I could find on Intel's announced new processor architecture. The biggest thing I saw was that they'll be four-issue processors... Interesting.

"At 14 stages, the main pipeline will be a little bit longer than current Pentium M processors. The cores will be a wider, more parallel design capable of issuing, executing, and retiring four instructions at once. (Current x86 processors are generally three-issue.)"