Intel Developer Forum Spring 2003 - Technology Showcase

More on New Platforms

In our coverage of the first day of the Spring 2003 IDF we talked about Intel's Powersville concept PC, today we're able to bring you a bit more on the concept PC side:

Above we have the 2003 Concept PC called Statesboro, designed to be an attractive digital media PC. This particular machine is Hyper-Threading enabled and sports a very attractive and simple chassis:

The more interesting concepts came from the 875 based systems Intel had on display, that showcased the Serial ATA enabled ICH5:

We were able to see prototypes of native Serial ATA CD/DVD-RW drives such as the one pictured above.

Intel also had on display a next-generation power supply with the native Serial ATA power connectors coming directly from the power supply itself. Currently you either have to use a 12V/5V to Serial ATA power converter cable, or you have to find a Serial ATA hard drive with both Serial ATA and regular power connectors in order to power your SATA drives. The beauty of having these connectors native on your power supply is that they carry all three voltages, 12V, 5V and the new 3.3V drive standard. With enough of these connectors making it to power supplies, the transition to 3.3V signaling for hard drives will be made with less difficulty.

Although not pictured here, Intel did have some more to say about PCI Express. According to Louis Burns, Intel expects to have native PCI Express support in platforms by 2004, which we think is fairly optimistic seeing as there will be a very limited number of PCI Express devices within that timeframe.