Intel DX38BT/DX48BT2 (Bone Trail)

[ATINUT]

Originally Posted by fvbounty

EZ - Flash on the Asus boards with a thumb drive looks like a piece of cake...

I've used EZ Flash to flash the bios of my motherboard to 1205, which is the latest non beta bios for my board using my 256MB USB Flash drive.

[Sandog]

I'm sure the new chipset allows booting to USB devices. Also I am sure the DVD Installer disk probably contains the necessary RAID drivers but this is a good question. How do you install pre-OS drivers? I think if you are using Vista it is not necessary as the drivers are probably on the Vista DVD. Then you can update to the latest drivers from inside Vista.

So-long floppy drive

I believe now I only need two device power cables, one for my SATA DVD ROM and one for the video card. Amazing.

[Sandog]

Just some holiday cheer from Intel.

Intel has a new system board coming out to it's predecessor SkullTrail and it is called Smackover, now this is getting funny.

DailyTech - Smack all Over with Intel's Smackover

Here's Intels cheery site where you can get good deals on systems that contain 'Intel' chips.

Welcome to Intel

I believe the U.S. Treasury Dept. is fixing to declair a new mint factory located in Oregon.

[Sandog]

Here are the latest drivers for the DX38BT from Intels Download Center.
Download Search Results

DX38BT available at NE for $229.99
Newegg.com - Intel BOXDX38BT LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

[Ford Freak]

Originally Posted by Sandog

DX38BT available at NE for $229.99
Newegg.com - Intel BOXDX38BT LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

I'm beginning to think they are communist at Newegg. The price was 209.99. then the MB wasn't listed for a few days. Now it is back for 229.99.

[Sandog]

The price has fluctuated at TigerDirect to. I think we saw the after Thanksgiving sale earlier, I don't know.

Anyway that is still a good price. The Extreme boards get more complicated (expensive) each successive series. The price is actually even with the D975XBX board price when it came out and the X38 chipset is more expensive than the X975 chipset. Just take a look at the cost of ASUS X38 chipset boards and you will feel Intel's is a bargain. I am all for waiting for the X48 as my processor is not out yet. I believe there was a rumor of an initial bug with the X38 chipset plus I feel the X48 will be a revised X38 chipset and not just a speed binned X38 chipset.


Here's to a new Penryn quad-core and a new Intel DX48BT mobo in the new year.

[ATINUT]

Originally Posted by Ford Freak

I'm beginning to think they are communist at Newegg. The price was 209.99. then the MB wasn't listed for a few days. Now it is back for 229.99.

Nope, Newegg is gougin the customer, more correctly known as price gouging. This has been going on at Newegg for about the last 4 or 5 months.

[Sandog]

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Now thats different! Check out the back of the DX38BT board. Nuthin' but SATA and USB plus a stack of audio jacks.

[SpeedDMN]

Originally Posted by Sandog

The price has fluctuated at TigerDirect to. I think we saw the after Thanksgiving sale earlier, I don't know.

Anyway that is still a good price. The Extreme boards get more complicated (expensive) each successive series. The price is actually even with the D975XBX board price when it came out and the X38 chipset is more expensive than the X975 chipset. Just take a look at the cost of ASUS X38 chipset boards and you will feel Intel's is a bargain. I am all for waiting for the X48 as my processor is not out yet. I believe there was a rumor of an initial bug with the X38 chipset plus I feel the X48 will be a revised X38 chipset and not just a speed binned X38 chipset.


Here's to a new Penryn quad-core and a new Intel DX48BT mobo in the new year.

This is one of the reasons I am avoiding all the Christmas madness. No one wants to spend anything after the holidays, but companies still want to sell stuff. So, I banked some money in advance for some fair prices. I might go with a high end Asus like the X38 Maximus Formula though they are Maximum priced and I haven't ruled out Intel. I haven't ruled out the X48 either even though the initial specs were not awe inspiring.

A X38/X48 plus whatever Penryn quad chip is price to performance reasonable and a 9 series GTX and I will be happy

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by SpeedDMN

This is one of the reasons I am avoiding all the Christmas madness. No one wants to spend anything after the holidays, but companies still want to sell stuff. So, I banked some money in advance for some fair prices. I might go with a high end Asus like the X38 Maximus Formula though they are Maximum priced and I haven't ruled out Intel. I haven't ruled out the X48 either even though the initial specs were not awe inspiring.

A X38/X48 plus whatever Penryn quad chip is price to performance reasonable and a 9 series GTX and I will be happy

I read somewhere that DRAM manufacturers (DDR3) have slowed production to drive up prices during Christmas. After Christmas will be a better time to buy I think. I am pretty sure what the X48 and Q9540 will cost but hopefully DDR3 will be down a bit after the new year.

Anyway, the X48 is going to be identical to the X38 but it will offer 1600 FSB support. This will probaby be the only difference and even this single feature has caveats. I believe if you want to run at 1600 FSB you can only use one set of DIMMS and you have to run at a minimal latency and voltage (1.8V for voltage which is average for 1600 DDR3 anyway). This means you probably can not use four sticks if you run at 1600 FSB. I going to wait for the X48 as it will be newer than the X38. For me I have no need to worry about getting the X38 if the Penryns are not available. My goal is to hit 1600 FSB with the Q9540 chip. According to QX9770 reviews, this makes the processor very hot when running at just 66MHz higher FSB so I will see. If I don't make it I think I can live with a 2.67GHz quad-core running at 1333FSB for $319 LOL.

[traveler]

Originally Posted by SpeedDMN

[snip]

I might go with a high end Asus like the X38 Maximus Formula though they are Maximum priced

[snip]

Look at the Asus Maximum Extreme. eSATA ports on the board.

[traveler]

A link -


bit-tech.net | Asus Maximus Formula & Maximus Extreme - Maximus has arrived

[Sandog]

That is the board I would get if I chose ASUS. I believe it is the only one with DDR3 and SoundMax.

There is an article at Fudzilla where they think the X48 chipset will only run at 1600 memory FSB with a 1600 FSB CPU like the QX9770 and won't let you run 1600 FSB with the other Penryn 1333 FSB CPU's. If this is the case then I believe there is only one processor that will ever run on this board at that speed and hardly anybody can afford that. I think Intel will be concentrating on Nehalem so it would turn out that the X48 board is really a niche board. To early to tell and we'll have to wait on reviews. I didn't gather that from reading the old slide but it may be the case.

Fudzilla - Intel X48 chipset to have limited DDR3-1600 support

Edit: You can of course OC the X48 board to whatever frequency you desire, I meant you might not be able to use the 1600 FSB strapping or setup the way you do with the QX9770 with the other 1333 FSB Penryn models. Hopefully we will see a quick review of the specific Intel DX48BT board when it arrives. I don't recall any Intel DX38BT board reviews does anybody? Just other X38 chipset board reviews. This is kinda strange since the DX38BT has been available for over a month now.

[Ford Freak]

Originally Posted by Sandog

I don't recall any Intel DX38BT board reviews does anybody? Just other X38 chipset board reviews. This is kinda strange since the DX38BT has been available for over a month now.

Here is a small review. It even shows 1600 in the bios.

Legit Reviews - Fall IDF 2007 - Intel DX38BT 'BoneTrail' Motherboard Preview - Looking At The Intel DX38BT Motherboard BIOS

[Sandog]

Thanks, yeah I've seen that short one. LR usually comes out with the first picks of new Intel boards. One of the members over there gets a hold of new Intel boards and is a photographer.

Anyway, I miss the olden days when a new board brought top headlines and a pic was splashed across the front page. Now most mobo reviews come in six packs and they go straight to silly benchmarks scores without really touching on features or board layout.