Great boards are coming thought Intel, with the boost of people buying their products ranging to entry, experienced and to media, even to gaming users, and for a while Apple made their product Intel based with their new line of I-Mac’s, not yet customisable as a Mac can be, but they know that they are profiting on Intel product line of efficient and multi-tasking CPU’s, well they don’t just make CPU’s, but also motherboard chipsets to come with it.
X48 Express chipset from Intel:
Intel manufactures, great for people to use and also fit to most of people’s purposes, if it is more on media systems they got the P45’s, for the entry one you are looking for, they have the G series of their express chipset series. While for the high priced and fully pimped board to accompany with your new Intel based Chip, the X48 series is a good buy for stability and performance.
Well specs say that it covers the Intel socket LGA775 with a front bus speed of compatible with 800/1066/1333/1600MHz, and a guarantee support of new 45nm and quad core processors, like the Q9450. Dual DIMM DDR3 memory, for a next third generation transfer of files with a limit capacity of 8GBs, CrossfireX with PCIe2.0, eight SATA connector, for head room for hard-drive, RAID enabled for protection or performance, three PCI slots, 7in1 audio connectors and dual Gigabit connectors.
Test, new gears and more!:
X48 is more equipped to the older sibling, the X38. the 48, has a newer version DDR memory and in later models can include with the new Southbridge ICH10R, that can now control more peripheral connectors like more SATA connectors and the parallel connectors is long gone of the improved SATA connectors (but in some manufacturer like, Gigabyte, can include an PATA connector) and in some reference X48, they only have six SATA ports, it is because it uses the older ICH9R Southbridge.
Tests show that this information that I am going to tell you is more important to see than watching the super bowl! More importantly the X48 is a good performer in most of the test in SiSoftsandra, on memory test pushes the Corsair Dominator with 2GB’s dual DIMM (1GB each memory stick), and the caching and editing programs show good results taking only a fraction less from the X38. While security teat benchmarks can really benefit on the DDR3 memory which give an outstanding lead on X38’s older DDR2 memory.
But with the good performance, you expect to cough more money from your pocket. Yes the cost of adding the DDR3 memory can cost more than $100 or more, comparing it with the DDR2 memory that cost less and more abundant. And to add, the price of the motherboard itself, you can get those about a minimum of $200, if you look around.
Conclusion:
While the board mixes well on the new 45nm cores, it doesn’t mix in with the price tag of the thing. More or less, but just right it would have been a perfect for the screaming gamer. A great improvement with the features from the X38, but if you are looking for a cheaper version, but like the latest from Intel, try to get a step up version of a P45, they work slightly the same with the X48 but missing stuff.