It's no secret for anyone already that in the middle of May we are expecting a new splash of cut-throat competition between the Pentium 4 chipset makers. This increased activeness in the Pentium 4 core logic market can be explained by the upcoming launching of Pentium 4 CPUs on Northwood core with faster 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus. By that time all the manufacturers offering their solutions for Intel processors will prepare new (updated or completely redesigned) products. At present, there is a certain lull in the Pentium 4 chipset market. Although at the past CeBIT (see our CeBIT 2002 Coverage for details) VIA and SiS already announced their solutions for Pentium 4, a lot of time will pass before we see them in real mainboards. Therefore, it's high time we took advantage of this short break and made clear a few things in the current situation in the Pentium 4 core logic market.
