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Gigabyte X48-DQ6 (Intel X48)

Author: Date: 14.02.2008

In a few weeks, Intel is announcing its new high-end X48 chipset. That even will happen simultaneously with the announcement of the new series of processors rated at the 400 MHz (1600 QPB) bus. These events are directly interrelated because it's just X48 that is the first chipset with the official support for the new bus. Nevertheless, we note that some motherboards built on the previous chipsets X38 and P35 will also support new processors, albeit unofficially.

Since the X48 has not yet been announced, we are not making any final conclusions regarding its attraction nor reviewing its specifications in detail. However, we are sharing some preliminary conclusions with you. In particular, support for the 400 MHz bus seems to be the only advantage of this chipset as compared to X38. It is interesting to note the fact that the release of X48 was planned early in the year, but under the pressure of motherboard manufacturers Intel deferred that event for two months. The thing is that the hasty release of X48 could bring harm to the sales of motherboards based on X38: because of the similarity of specifications the users would have ignored the "outdated" X38. The higher frequencies of X48 also means that this chipset offers a higher overclocking capability, which will certainly appeal to computer enthusiasts. As regards support for the Crossfire, the number of users of this technology is pretty low, even as compared to the number of users of NVIDIA SLI. Therefore, in our opinion, however advanced the progress at that may be, that absolutely doesn't affect the popularity of X48. As regards the expansion options, there are also no pleasant surprises: all the motherboards based on X48 offer the well-known south bridge ICH9(R). Quite possibly, X48 will be compatible to ICH10, but for now we'd better refrain from forecasts at that.

Now regarding motherboards based on X48. The fact that manufacturers acquired first specimens of X48 already in 2007 tells that they had not enough time for the development of the PCB design, debugging the BIOS and software, as well as polishing the overclocking tools. In particular, we obtained a specimen of Gigabyte X48-DQ6, already of revision 1.1. Nevertheless, it uses the engineering version of the BIOS firmware which overstates the FSB speed by as much as 2 MHz. On the other hand, the board is shipped with the release-version package bundle. Therefore, we would call this review as "preview" because the final PCB design is not equivalent to the "finished product": no less important is the final BIOS version.

Gigabyte X48-DQ6 Specifications

Package

Gigabyte X48-DQ6 is packed within a huge box having holographic coating, equipped with a handle to carry it around.

One page tips up, and the user can get a brief idea of all Gigabyte's proprietary technologies, as well as watch the board through a transparent window.

Although the specimen that we acquired was only a sample "for the press", its package bundle almost meets that for the release-version product; the only missing item is the user's manual.

Package bundle

• Motherboard;
• *User's Manual in English + Quick Setup Manual;
• 1x software & drivers DVD;
• One ATA-133 cable, one FDD cable;
• Four SerialATA cables;
• 1x External SerialATA cable + power supply adapter (1 connector);
• An external module to plug in SerialATA devices;
• A cap for the rear panel of the housing

The board's package bundle leaves a somehow dubious impression. The thing is that the X48 chipset is Intel's top-end product, whereas X48-DQ6 is a top-end model in Gigabyte's assortment. Therefore, its price should be at about $300, which is rather expensive according to modern standards. From this viewpoint, it is absolutely not clear why the box has not the required quantity of SerialATA cables and power supply adapters. Also missing is a bracket for LPT and COM ports. Anyway, these ports can be seen as outdated, which may be the reason for this saving.

Also missing are additional brackets for USB2.0 and Firewire ports. However, we won't regard that as a shortcoming. The thing is, the number of USB2.0 ports on the rear panel is unusually great - as many as 8(!). The same can be said about Firewire ports as well, which are two.

Of the additional items, we note a special bracket for plugging in external SerialATA devices, as well as an eSATA cable with the matching power supply adapter.

The board comes bundled with a DVD that contains all the required Gigabyte's drivers and utilities, as well as third-party software: Norton and Kaspersky anti-viruses.

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	Content:
	Стр.1 - Specifications Стр.2 - Layout Стр.3 - Expansion options Стр.4 - BIOS, system monitoring Стр.5 - Overclocking and stability Стр.6 - Performance and conclusions Top Stories: MoBo: ECS X58B-A (Intel X58) ASUS Rampage II Extreme (Intel X58) MSI DKA790GX and ECS A780GM-A Ultra MSI P7NGM (NVIDIA GeForce 9300) Intel X58 and ASUS P6T Deluxe MSI P45 Neo2 (Intel P45) Foxconn A7GMX-K (AMD 780G) VGA Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 – a new leader in 3D graphics! ECS HYDRA GeForce 9800GTX+. Water-cooled and SLI "all-in-one" Radeon HD 4830 CrossFire - better than Radeon HD 4870! XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition in the SLI mode Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT DDR2 – better than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic: exclusive, with unusual features Palit HD 4850 Sonic: almost Radeon HD 4870, priced as HD 4850 CPU & Memory: GSkill high-capacity memory modules CPU Intel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield) DDR3 memory: late 2008 CPU AMD Phenom X3 8750 (Toliman) AMD Phenom X4 9850 – a top-end CPU at affordable price CPU Intel Atom 230 (Diamondville) Chaintech Apogee GT DDR3 1600