i820e is the i820 chipset matched to ICH2. As with the i815e, it adds ATA/100, integrated LAN, dual-master USB and improved audio support over the non-"e" version. When i820e comes out in June, RDRAM prices will likely still be too high for most consumers to consider. From the look of things, Colusa, the next generation Intel platform, will be the first Intel platform to come out when RDRAM is fully in stride. Colusa may also be the first platform that truly needs RDRAM. According to Intel, RDRAM will show major benefits as clock speed increases.

Gigabyte has plans for one i820e motherboard, the GA-6CXB7E, which will sport two RIMM slots, three DIMM slots, and just like the i815e-based GA-6OXM7E, will support AGP Pro 4x, six PCI slots, one CNR slot, a Smart Card Reader and DualBIOS. These features will make it a strong contender in the high-end market. We particularly like the addition of AGP Pro. By providing more power to the AGP slot, AGP Pro gives video card designers the power they need for multi-processor video cards.