14 DAY TRIAL // The high performance desktop hardware platform offerings from Intel will soon include the X38 chipset and after it the X48 will come with a number of innovative technologies that are rumored to include high speed DDR3 memory support along with some other improvements over the still unreleased X38.
The last launched Intel chipset which was aimed at the high performance gaming and enthusiast market segments, the Intel 975X chipset, is now over two years old and it was high time for the biggest computer hardware manufacturing company in the world to announce a replacement for it. The said replacement, the X38 core logic chip, will soon find its way to mainboard manufacturers as shipments are slated to begin soon. The X38 will come with official support for dual channel memory configurations and PC3-10600 memory modules, meaning that DDR3 memories running at 1333MHz are in order now, just like the PCI Express version 2.0 system bus and multi-GPU technology support.
The follower of the X38 chipset will be named X48 and according to the news site xbitlabs, it will hit the market by the end of the year, bringing support for 1600MHz processor system bus, PSB for short, along with support for the faster PC3-12800 DDR3 memory modules that run at a standard clock speed of 1600MHz. Apart from these new features, it is rumored that the X48 will be virtually identical with the X38 chipset, even sharing the same general mainboard layout in order to make it easier for mainboard manufacturing companies to jump from one core logic chip to the next.
As the X38 brings increased processor system bus, up to 1333MHz, only a handful of currently released Intel central processing units like the dual core Core 2 Duo processors and a single quad core CPU, the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6850, are able to match the official speed offered by X38.
While Intel said nothing about plans to release desktop processors using the 1600MHz PSB, it is yet possible that such processors will come under the ''Extreme'' designation as only they will be able to fully use the technologies that are said to be implemented into the X48 core logic chips. On the other hand Intel did mention plans to upgrade the server intended Xeon processing units to the 1600MHz PSB, so the X48 may very well find itself employed on the server market segment too.
Until now Intel always released a single high end desktop intended chipset in order not to confuse users but things may soon change as its rival company, Advanced Micro Devices plans a number of new products itself which are aimed at the same market segments.