You'll just need to put this chipset on your mobo...

I just read an interesting article that reveals the planned Q2 2008 release of the G45 chipset with its integrated GMA-X4500 graphics will relieve all the woes I've had thus far with my G33/GMA-3100 system. As I mentioned before it will deliver considerable bang for the buck performance wise, but it will also include full HDCP encryption support for HD-DVD and BluRay, plenty of MPEG2, VC-1 and H.264 codec, and support for HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort - all without additional hardware - so hopefully all mobos will have those connections and features and I wont be boxed into a corner picking a mobo with a crippled 16X PCIe slot. Naturally G45 will also deliver PCIe 2.0 so it looks to me like it will bring compatibility for a long time to come - the soon to be released G35 and then G43 based boards just wont be worth a look in.

The only question I have left is what CPUs will run with G45 - naturally it will include the new (as now) 45nm chips, but what about the next rev of the architecture Nehalem? And if it supports them what about the next die shrink beyond that? From all I've read I think I'll be happy if I get Nehalem support since it should bring a lot of benefits especially for the quad-core processor I've been hankering after, all with the proven lower power usage of 45nm.

UPDATE: according to an article in "The Register", G45 will use the ICH10 Southbridge which is required by the QuickPath interconnect of Nehalem processors. That sounds hopeful to me , althought its not clear if the QP interconnect is something else that a mobo needs or it is integrated with the processor. Anyway bring it on - something to look forward to in six months time (because I'm not expecting to see it before Q3 given what happened with G35 roll-out!)