With the Pentium 4 in mail order stores now, before Intel's release date, we felt it was time to give an update on the status of Intel's next generation chip as well as a look at some more information on Intel's upcoming SDR and DDR chipsets for the Pentium 4.

The Pentium 4 is now available, both at 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz, though the launch date has not yet arrived. You should know that, if you buy now from one of the mail order outfits offering the Pentium 4, you will likely get overcharged by some of those resellers who are jumping the launch date to make an extra buck.

If you manage to wait for the actual launch, you may save yourself quite a few dollars. Don't be foolish and buy now. You can't actually buy a Pentium 4 motherboard yet, so you won't be able to use a Pentium 4 right away, anyway. Pentium 4 motherboards should start to arrive in the next month or so.

If you don't know the details of the Pentium 4, we strongly recommend you read our Pentium 4 Unveiled article. We have more information to add in our Intel Developer Forum 2000 Show Report. And we have even more information in our Pentium 4 and Timna Update article.

Intel is finally bowing to industry pressure and moving full speed towards SDR and DDR Pentium 4 chipsets in the mainstream. Brookdale, Intel's SDR and DDR chipset for the Pentium 4, will be moving onto the corporate desktop in Q3 2001, when it will start to replace i815E systems. There will be two versions of the Brookdale chipset, an SDR and a DDR version. The SDR version should hit the market in September of 2001. The DDR version should hit in January of 2002, though there is a chance that it will arrive as early as October of 2001.