Intel Developer Forum Spring 2003 - Day 2: Learn about Prescott & Centrino

Before closing, Louis Burns spoke about Intel's vision for PCs in 2004 with their Powersville desktop concept:

Here we see the first public mention of Intel's Tejas processor, the replacement for Prescott. As we mentioned years ago, Tejas will use at least a 1.2GHz FSB but we aren't familiar with the rest of the processor's specifications at this point.

We mentioned yesterday that Intel is expecting PCI Express to be on all systems by 2004, and their Powersville concept supports this idea. Note that Intel will be transitioning to DDR2 in 2004, with no mention of using RDRAM anytime soon; and take note of the move to PCI Express Graphics as well.

Intel also announced their Azalia next-generation audio specification, designed as a replacement to the current AC'97 specification. Details are sketchy at best at this point, but Intel wants to enable technologies such as DVD-Audio and SACD playback, as well as multiple audio output streams through the Azalia specification. Intel will be publishing the specification later this year with availability of products planned for late 2004.

Final Words

It's off to find out what Prescott's 13 new instructions are right now, we'll be back shortly...