Another day, another X38 motherboard announcement! Today, its ABIT doing the honours by introducing their first Intel X38 Express chipset offering - the DDR2 based IX38 QuadGT Speedster. The motherboard supports the latest 65nm and next generation 45 nm Core 2 Extreme/Quad/Duo processors with up to 1600 FSB and a total of 8 GB high-end DDR2 1066 MHz RAM to offer sufficient expandability for all your needs.

Other features include all Solid State Capacitors, new generation Digital PWM offering most precise and consistent voltage supply for reduced power consumption, onboard on/off and reset switches allow for testing your system before integrating it into your case, external Clear CMOS button to return to default settings after a failed overclock.

The copper based dual-heatpipe heat sink with extra slim fins and an additional cooling Extendor maximizes heat dissipation by linking the North Bridge high-fin heat-sink via a heatpipe to on extra high-fin heat-sink.

Standard features include PCI-E 2.0 CrossFire Dual Graphics Technology support, 1 x additional PCI-E 2.0 X16 slot, Gigabit Ethernet, 6 x SATA 3Gb/s RAID 0/1/0+1/5 JBOD, 7.1-Channel HD with optical S/P DIF In/Out, Up to 12 x Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports, 2 x eSATA connectors on the back panel.

Now word yet on pricing and availability. Check out the product page for more info.

Foxconn today announced the launch of X38A Digital Life Motherboard. The high-end desktop motherboard, which is based on Intel's latest X38 chipset, brings more connectivity and digital entertainment capabilities to enthusiast motherboards.

The X38A is compatibility with both DDR2 and DDR3 RAM. The motherboard will support a maximum of 8GB DDR2 1066/800/667MHz RAM or 4GB DDR3 1333/1066/800MHz RAM. This provides true flexibility to consumers who don't have plans to take the DDR3 path right now.

The X38A fully supports the latest industry technologies; with three PCIe x16 slots (including two slots supporting ATI CrossFire running at dual x16 bandwidth), PCIe Generation 2.0 support for future high-performance graphics cards, and support for forthcoming Intel® 45nm processors.

FoxconnÙs proprietary Cool Pipe design effectively removes heat from the critical NB, SB and VRM areas, and with an optional low-noise fan on the NB heatsink and Cool Fan control in the BIOS, you can easily configure your system for an effective combination of passive and active cooling.

Other enthusiast features include onboard CMOS and On/Off/Reset buttons, FoxOne™ Windows-based system monitoring and overclocking utility, and extensive BIOS tuning capability via the Fox Central Control Unit (FCCU) BIOS menu.

Enhanced connectivity and digital entertainment capabilities include the Dual Digital Audio feature which allows users to split two sound sources to independent outputs, Dual Gigabit LAN enabling users to connect to 2 independent networks without speed loss, or share an internet connection with another computer, Dual eSATA ports on the rear I/O along with the proprietary Foxconn Digital Connector (FDC) which provides the link to future Foxconn Digital Life products, designed for enhanced digital entertainment and communication.

“Digital Life is about giving users better capability to utilize their PC in the home environment, not just sat in the corner of a home office or being used as a high-end enthusiast rig. We wanted to combine the performance and overclocking features found on enthusiast motherboards with some additional connectivity capabilities, which will provide for a more adaptable computing platform," enthused Eric Chu, Digital Life Product Manager.

The X38A Digital Life Motherboard will be available from November. Reference retail price is around the £120 - £130 plus VAT.

MSI provided some excellent boards in the days of the nForce 3 and 4 for the Athlon 64, but it has somewhat lagged behind Asus in the Core 2 market so far. Can a new BIOS  bring their flagship P35 Platinum up there with the best? 

VR-Zone pitted it against the P5K Premium to see how it performed and it fared quite well under the tests. Synthetic benchs aside, games run similarly in either board, so much you wouldn't tell the difference. Not even Company of Heroes shows a big enough margin to be felt. Quake 4, Unreal Tournament 2004, 3DMark06 and AquaMark 3 just get identical performance (don't look at the graphs, read the numbers).

Overcloking is also on par with the Asus board (495 MHz), but prices are quite another story: $145.50 and $215.75 for MSI and Asus respectively.

Right now, the Intel P35 chipset is probably the favored choice for a Core 2 motherboard platform (SLI fans apart). But with so many of them available, which one do you buy? Tom’s Wardware tries to give you some guidance by testing three boards from some of the most reputed manufacturers.

It's shocking to see the results, because they don't deviate more than 1% from one another. 3D games, 3D Studio Max, WinRAR, PCMark, Lame, XviD, H.264, Cinebench... all of them show almost identical numbers. Only DivX 6.6 gets to a 2%, which is still between the margin of error for any benchmark.

If you want to look for differences, you'll have to look at power consumption or overcloking. Not both aspects, though, because the stands reverse for each one.

Looks like buying decisions will have to be based on personal preferences, price or availability, which never were a bad basis anyhow.

Not only does the waterblock take care of the X38 chipset, it also reaches the southbridge as well, through two heatpipes going from there to the big heatsink covering  it. 

The motherboard has two x16 slots (the blue ones) which are both PCI Express 2.0. It also features two PCI slots and to two x1 PCI Express slots. The version of the Maximus Formula which supports DDR2 memory is already on their site for browsing.

Asus wants this board to be a good overclocker (they say to have already hit some very high speeds with it) and one can only wonder if they aren't going to use the X48 here.

Link: TweakTown. 

Vr-Zone has posted this news bit:

"Intel will have an updated version of their DX38BT board using the X48 chipset and we heard it is likely to be called DX48BT or DX38BT2. Intel X48 is essentially X38 chipset but cherry picked so overclockability can be further enhanced. X48 will also officially support FSB1600. More importantly, X48 is to fix the EIST bug present in the X38 chipset that requires motherboard manufacturers to rework their X38 boards. Boards based on X48 chipset are slated to appear in Q1 2008."

Is it good news or bad news? On the one hand, you get better overcloking (if you have the money to buy, of course), but on the other hand most buyers who go for the "regular" X38 will get their chances at hitting high speeds diminished, won't they? 

With so much talk about GPUs and CPUs coming together, it's somewhat dissapointing to see just where we are when it comes to IGPs. Looks like a good place to start feeling what's coming, right? AMD has the X1250 and nVidia prepares it's new line of Geforce 7 based products. Intel will get the G35 chipset out next year and all of them promise real integration (call it Fusion or something else).

As if they came from a politician's mouth, these promises are to be taken with a grain of salt, because they aren't getting any closer to become true, with the likes of the G33. Yes, if the board manufacturer wants, you will get HDMI, DVI, and HDCP support. But if we discuss gaming performance, the GMA 3100 at it's core will prove to be even worse than AMD's solution. Just see the graphs for yourself.

It's painful to see a modest card like the 2600XT taking such a lead over the best of the IGP world in all the tests undertaken. Granted, they are new games, not the ones you usually expect to run on anything but a "real" graphics card, but they were played at 1024 x 768 at medium quality settings and only Sims 2 is between reach.

Link: Anandtech.

Having more competition in this particular market since AMD incorporated ATI graphics to their IGPs, nVidia seeks to chalenge the biggest seller of them all: Intel.

Intel Integrated Graphics Processors are usually disregarded by the informed buyer as having a weak 3D performance, but the majority of sales are OEM, and they know their costumers aren't usually among this group of buyers. That's how come that Intel sells more IGPs than anybody else, my offering good deals to the OEMs.

At camp nVidia they have taken this into account, and plan on delivering chipsets that are cheap too. Particulary, the nForce 610i should make a good match for a Celeron, one of the new Pentiums or even an E4xxx series CPU.

For details on this and the other two nForce 630i, check X-bit labs.

This is officially a multi processor comeback to the desktop segment. Both AMD and Intel offer now a dual socket platform for gamers.

Skulltrail will place a motherboard based on the Seaburg chipset at the heart of the system. It will house two Harpertowns with a 1600Mhz FSB and up to four PCI Express x16 slots for Quad SLI (strangely, no CrossFire is mentioned this time). The board will require fully buffered DDR2 DIMMs to work.

Do you want to see a couple of benchmarks?, go check X-bit labs. There, you will find out how an overclocked system to 4Ghz with 4Gb of DDR2-800 fares. 

If you ask me, this move comes rather late, with everybody talking already about 8-core Nehalems, who wants to spend so much money on a dual socket platform for Penryn?

Asus presents the L1A64-WS, a two-sockets 1207+ mainboard for the quad-core AMD Phenom FX chips. It features four PCI Express x16 slots for quad ATI CrossFire gaming, four memory slots for up to 8GB of DDR2 and several chips to provide for whatever the enthusiast may need.

It's not yet known when Asus plans on releasing these boards, but the fact that they are showing off means said release is planned (probably not before next year).

AMD’s FASN8 (First AMD Silicon Next-gen 8-core) platform targets gamers and, consequently, won't be cheap. In any case, those who like to be on top of the performance curve are used to spend big time.

Link: X-bit labs. 

The dust over the battle between the last two Intel chipsets hasn't settled yet and already a new one hovers over the horizon. In this case, Intel hopes it will be the succesor to the 975X as the enthusiast chipset of choice. And I ask you, what makes for an "enthusiast chipset"? If it's overclocking and performance, the P965 already was up there to claim the title (or a tie, at least). If it's features, those not included on the chipset itself can be easily implemented by the motherboard manufacturer at a cost. What's there to make it shine?

Anandtech has taken a Gigabyte mainboard based on Intel's lates and greatest to see just that and the board doesn't disappoint neither in the overclocking nor in the performance deparment. Compared to a P35 (both running a system equipped with DDR2) it's slightly faster even with an engineering sample and an early BIOS. It overclocks past the 500 Mhz barrier, too.

Is it an enthusiast choice? For the moment, no more than the P35 was. CrossFire is there, but no official SLI support has been added yet. You must also beware of the power consumption, because it promises to be quite high. For the ones wanting to pay the premium for the highest level of performance I guess this is the new king. On the other hand, if you want to build a very powerful PC and don't have unlimited funds, I wouldn't toss apart the idea of coupling a Q6600 with a cheap P35 or even an Asus Deluxe P965. They should be competitive on a price/performance chart.