In the past you needed a CPU, a Northbridge and a Southbridge or at least three chips to make an Intel platform work.

As of late 2009, Havendale will change this, as the CPU will get an integrated GPU and Intel’s Ibex peak chipset will be a single-chip solution.

The Havendale CPU has a GPU or iGFX as Intel likes to calls it, but at the same time this CPU supports external PCIe graphics.

Havendale is a dual-core, Nehalem derived 45nm CPU and therefore it comes with integrated memory controller on the CPU side of the chip. The chip supports DDR3 and it interconnects with Ibex peak via a direct memory interface (DMI).

The Ibex peak Southbridge is interconnected with the GPU through Intel's Flexible Display Interface (FDI) and the chipset should provide display connectivity. The chipset also has an input/output part and something called a Manageability engine. The latter is something that Intel already has in its 4-series Northbridge.

Two chips means higher integration at lower power and greater performance at the same time, at least this is what Intel claims. This is what it looks like.