While it wont officially be announced until the second quarter of 2001 word is already leaking out about Almador. This new core logic chipset is designed to support the new 1.2 volt Pentuim III Coppermine-T (Tualatin) Cpus and will allow Intel to get a stronger SDRAM based foothold paving the way for SD/DDRAM-enabled P4s.

The initial Almador chipset will support the Coppermine-T’s 1.2-V termination voltage, which Intel has included to lower power consumption and increase performance. The 1.3-GHz Tualatin-class Pentium III, which is slated to launch in mid-2001, will further avail itself of a performance-enhancing differential clock feature that will be included in the Almador.

 Intel wont comment, stating they have a policy against discussing unreleased products. However Paul Otellini, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, stated We will take advantage of DDR [for the Pentium 4] as soon as it becomes mainstream but with no indication as to whether the chipset would be Intel or third party. Otellini added that Intel has recaptured its market share in chipsets by ramping production of its 815 family of SDRAM logic and memory controllers. He said when the 815 was introduced early this year, its production was limited because Intel was devoting fab capacity primarily for processor output. In [the third quarter], we were able to get enough capacity to build a much higher volume of 815 chipsets. We have gained back the chipset market share that we previously held, he said.