14 DAY TRIAL // The next generation of Intel desktop mainboard chipsets are aimed at gamers and power users and the manufacturing company hopes that the X48, as it is named, will prove to be a huge success. The X48 should arrive some time during the second week of November and as Intel is not really known for its extreme punctuality, mainboard manufacturers may have some additional time to tweak their products.
As the X38 chipset turned out to already support the much touted Intel 1600MHz processor speed and a number of first tier mainboard manufacturers like Asus and Gigabyte were quick to seize the opportunity and gain some free advertising as they showed off their products, Intel has no longer a valid point in delaying the ''performance'' aimed X48.
Initially Intel declared that the X38 chipset will be aimed at the extreme market segment, but now it looks like this is no longer the case and the X48 will target the extremely stupid users with way too much money to burn on a ''new'' chipset that is in fact the following iteration of the X38. This is because the X48 chipset only makes the 1600Mhz capabilities of the X38 official, while preserving pin compatibility, DDR3 memory support and all other features while providing a new set of limitations like the lack of ECC memory support. Even if the X48 comes after the X38 chipset, it does not offer the ECC feature, while the X38 is integrating it and so it can be used for powering workstation mainboards.
According to the news site fudzilla, the X48 Intel chipset may offer native support for only two XMP memory modules running at 1600MHz and that simply means that in order to get the most of it, users will have to heavily invest in a new memory kit. Apart from that ''little'' problem, the DDR3 powering voltage is set to 1.8V, so it is mighty high, probably in an attempt to make the memory modules operate in a stable manner.