Getting graphic
Intel's 845GE board isn't as flashy as the Blue Mountain board, but this one really is destined for truckloads full of corporate desktop PCs, because it packs Intel's integrated graphics in the 845GE chipset. Intel's "Extreme Graphics" are anything but extreme (unless you count "extremely cheap"), but they are adequate for most non-gaming tasks.

The 845GE's officially faster memory will boost overall bandwidth available for the processor and built-in graphics from 2.1GB/s to 2.7GB/s. To best take advantage of this change, Intel has bumped up the speed of its graphics core from 200MHz in the 845G to 266MHz in the 845GE.

845GE boards usually have a VGA port instead of a second serial port

Like the 845G, the GE can support a discrete graphics card in an AGP slot, so if you have an 845G system, you're not stuck with pokey 3D gaming forever. Appropriately, then, we've tested the 845GE with and without a discrete graphics card, so you can see what impact using the GE's integrated graphics has on performance.

A block diagram of the 845GE chipset. Source: Intel.

An RDRAM surprise
Beyond the DDR chipsets announcements, Intel has one other bit of news today: the company is finally validating PC1066 RDRAM for use with its 850E chipset. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy, because I've been using PC1066 memory for testing for a good while. Now, 850E system configs with PC1066 RDRAM are officially OK with Intel. To keep things interesting, we've tested Intel's new chipsets against 850E systems with both PC800 and PC1066 memory.