A Checkmate on Intel was Made by Gigabyte and MSI
X48-Based motherboards of Gigabyte and MSI were never launched into the market,
which is a cruel example of checkmate for the popular chipmaker Intel.
The two companies are considered to be world's biggest motherboard producers (not including Asus). This is why there was no big surprise after public found out about the fact that the two giants decided to develop brand-new motherboards, which would be powered by the approaching X48 chipset, developed by Intel, with complete support for the quad-core powerhorses.
Motherboards of the first step are unable to ship
motherboards based on Intel's chip X48. Both Gigabyte and MSI broke their deal
with the chip maker and announced their new goodies, together with full
technical specifications of the forthcoming chipset.
For example, Gigabyte several days ago made an announcement regarding the new X48 motherboard that will include a revolutionary technology that works like gearbox. The company announced that the one of a kind Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) technology is able to throttle the entire system up and down.
On the other hand, the second producer of
motherboards, MSI, presented its own version of motherboard that works on X48,
having the same dual-channel power supply design as its former motherboard
enabled by X38. The new model is to contribute to an improved power management.
In addition the company will have an update to its own cooling technology,
dubbed Circu-Pipe fansink and the MSI SkyTel technology.
Despite the fact that the two companies refused to give any details regarding the forthcoming gear, they are prohibited to ship it, only if they are not meant strictly for sampling purposes until the chipmaker Intel officially presents its X48 family of chipsets. This, however, will not take place very soon due to the pressure coming from the motherboards developers, who force Intel to delay the introduction of X48 until Gigabyte and MSI get rid of older motherboards working on X38, which are found in great number at the companies' warehouses.
According to some reports the only producer of motherboards that still faces certain problems with X38-running motherboards inventory is Asustek Computer. Intel is now waiting for Asustek's nod so to be able to launch the new X48s. Besides the X48 chipset, Intel also had to delay the introduction of the QX9770, a quad-core processor that accompanies X48.