X38: To be replaced?

[MIS3]

Do you know about this?

http://my.ocworkbench.com/bbs/showth...threadid=68289

[Brother Esau]

That must be nice to see if you are a motherboard manufacture and have invested tons of money in RD and production

[Colossous]

The rumour was that X48 were just cherry picked X38 chipsets - is this not true then ?

[Blauhung]

The rumour was that X48 were just cherry picked X38 chipsets - is this not true then ?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&highlight=X38

nope, still true. The bugs they are refering to are very minor and only happen on coming back from standby a very small % of the time.

Most of the board makers are just angry that they have to have 2 branding for pretty much the same board with one behaving better at higher overclocks and lower latencies.

X48 is still a binned X38, board makers just hate having to need a new name.

[Talonman]

It has been a bad 24 hours for news.

My Maximus SE has a mobo revision, and X38 could be done.

I have yet to power it on.

I know in the computer game, ya can't say on top for long, but dang!!

That is a little too fast for me. Mine arrived at the house on the 16th.

[K404]

This aint news. Its been known for a looonnnngggg time

[mXpS]

Some people got burned before they even received their boards. Wow, I would be pissed.

[Aldy402]

we x38 owners have to band together somehow
something has to be done..

this is just not right

[china]

Haha, just installing XP on my new X38 P5E. Makes me laugh...

[K404]

At no point was this covered up? What are you complaining about? X48- a tweaked version of X38- was announced before X38 went on sale.

If you didnt know about it, blame yourselves for not doing your research.

30th August: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&highlight=X48

15th September: http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-33...8-chipset.html

30th September: http://www.legitreviews.com/news/3964/

[theonlybabyface]

I agree. That's why I didn't "jump" on x38. No need right now especially when it was well documented that x48 was going to be the tweakers chipset and coming out right after x38.

Looks like DDR3 only maybe?

[K404]

I agree. That's why I didn't "jump" on x38. No need right now especially when it was well documented that x48 was going to be the tweakers chipset and coming out right after x38.

Anyone know if x48 is strictly DDR3 or not?

Giga have a DDR2 version of X48 Minimal redesign to make a DDR2 board

[Nelly]

Indeed, I will wait till X48 comes out now. . . no point whatsoever purchasing X38 when X48 will be out within a few months.

Btw I woudnt really blame motherboard manufacturers they need the revenue to keep going, this is all Intels doing its absolutly ridiculous.

[aehmkei]

Very bad for companies like DFI - they didn't even announce their X38 board yet...

[voltaire2030]

No big deal ... X48 is optimized for DDR3 ... With the cost of DDR3 now, not a good investment ... sure some mobo cie will slap DDR2 on those x48 board, but will they be any good if x48 was made or optimized for DDR3 ? Will we see a BIG difference between x38 and x48 in DDR2 ?

Anyhow, x38 is , for me, a in between mobo until DDR3 drop in price and gain in power over DDR2 ... X38 give you pci2 now and that's what I wanted because GPU is WAY more important, for me (gamer), then RAM ! And if you take into account also that x38 is compatible with the new Intel cpu coming out, I can keep that board until DDR3 drop in price ! The only problem that I have is the fact that it's crossfire ... IF ATI don't pull up something good - for gaming, not 3dmark06- , then I think I will pretty piss not to have a SLI mobo ...

[Cascades]

we x38 owners have to band together somehow
something has to be done..

this is just not right

Band together and do what? When the X48'are out in mass in a few months, this will be a non-issue.

[ZilverPhish]

DDR 3 will cost a ton of money even in Q1 2008. X48 with DDR 2 would be great. Actually I was holding a Maximus in my hands yesterday but I managed to inhibit my impulse to buy it.

[Aldy402]

Band together and do what? When the X48'are out in mass in a few months, this will be a non-issue.

may be I should have read more carefully but my initial thought was that the x48 was a just a high binned version of the x38. In the original post it states the X38 is being replaced because of its bugs and non disclosed problems? thats entirely different..

correct me if im wrong..

[MIS3]

Yes, when I started the thread, I was more concerned about the non-disclosed defects.

Before we make the purchase, it would be nice if we are aware of the details of these defects to make an informative decision.

On the other hands, looks to me that these defects are minor based on the feedbacks from many Maximus Fomrula owners. However, we do not know if these defects affect the long term stability or not.

[china]

Blah, I got my X38 board now and will consider if I need to change when the X48 comes. It seems like it's just a tweaked X38, especially since I will most likely be running DDR2 for a while. It's always like this, something new is just around the corner. That's what makes it exciting!-)

[GAR]

hmmmm...........as long as the x38 gets its 4 stick issue resolved, then we have a winner, those small S3 bugs are meaningless to me and most people here..........my only issue is asus already has a new revision with the maximus board..........this is wayy too fast, there goes the idea that intel makes the best chipsets, might just sell this and jump on a 790i sli, i loved my 680i and i hope the 790i is as good.

[Blauhung]

They are still 2 completely seperate SKU's of the chipset.

The X48 is not replacing th X38. The X48 is the same exact revision of the BearlakeC product only binned higher.

The X38 is sort of an "economy class" Enthusiast chipset for those who want dual 16x PCIe slots and fast DDR3 support. It uses BIN1 of the BearlakeC. It costs less because many more of the chips fall into this bin.

The X48 is the "extreme class" Enthusiast chipset that is meant to be the last high end FSB platform for Intel desktops. It is made of up chips that fall into BIN2. It is being sold to board makers at $30 more then the X38 due to the much lower yields.

The bugs associated with either platform are very very minor and most (such as the dual slot memory issue) are completely fixable with BIOS revisions.

Overall the X38 was "launched" too early as the mobo makers were still ironing out all the bios issues. This is also why Intel's own Bone Trail board is taking a while. Those of you with Asus/Gigabite boards do not have to band together. You were early adopters of boards that had not been proven yet and you had the knowledge of the fact that a faster chip will be released at a later date. If you fall into the camp of people that want to pay $40-$50 more for a board that has some improvements in max speed and latency then you should have waited for those boards.

In summary, The X38 is not being replaced. It will still be available as a different performance level and price level from the X48 boards. Both bins are still getting chips and most of the upset vibes that are still happening are due to the fact that the board makers are upset that they have to have 2 separate brandings for almost the same product, which increases their marketing/development costs, and causes confusion like this for the consumer.

Read here for more on performance

[BulldogPO]

ÖÖh, what 4 sticks issue?
I have 4 stick on my board..

[Bobsama]

Oh goody. I'll keep my Abit IP35-E and have fun for a while. If, in 6 months, PCI 2.0 is clearly better, maybe when I refresh I'll make a jump. The Yorkies look fine as it is. This really is a non-issue for many of us. P35 and X38 are great boards that will support Yorkie and Wolfie, and some of them even support DDR3. I choose what is best when I buy (with regard to price-drops around the corner and future releases)--so should most other people.

[Talonman]

The X48 is not replacing th X38. The X48 is the same exact revision of the BearlakeC product only binned higher.

The bugs associated with either platform are very very minor and most (such as the dual slot memory issue) are completely fixable with BIOS revisions.

Those of you with Asus/Gigabite boards do not have to band together. You were early adopters of boards that had not been proven yet and you had the knowledge of the fact that a faster chip will be released at a later date. If you fall into the camp of people that want to pay $40-$50 more for a board that has some improvements in max speed and latency then you should have waited for those boards.

That is good you confirmed that the X38 is still being produced. You can understand why the initial link with it saying:

"the X38 chipset is shortlived because it has some issues which remains unresolved. In replacement, the X48 chipset will replace the X38 in future shipments for the high end boards"

would make people think that it was no longer being produced. That is what replaced usually means, and the time frame sounded immeadiate, as in 'from this shipment on'.

I am glad that you think that the bugs can be fixed through a BIOS update. This dude didn't know what the bugs actually were. "We are unsure what bugs are there on X38 which resulted in this move".

I think you don't understand why people were mad. I don't think it was ever about that a faster board came out. We all expected that. What we didn't expect was to see a scource hinting that X38 was no longer in production due to a bug that is unresolved.

No post that I saw was telling me that X38 would be out of production before most of us had a chance to even power our boards up, and that it would be due to an unresolved bug in the chipset.

Make no mistake, this was new info, and had nothing to do with X48 just to be clear.

For me it is about ordering a $300 board, that I thought was being replaced due to a bug, with an issue that for whatever reason is going to go unresolved with X38.....

If it is true, please don't take away our right to be angry. You actually would have to buy the board first, then be told it was being discontinued due to a bug in X38 to really get a vote on how you feel about the situaction.

This aint news. Its been known for a looonnnngggg time

At no point was this covered up? What are you complaining about? X48- a tweaked version of X38- was announced before X38 went on sale.

If you didnt know about it, blame yourselves for not doing your research.

Ditto!