Intel's successor to the X38 chipset is set to be released very soon. According to several sources, Intel's new chipset will arrive in mid-March, an unusual time to launch such a product. However the X48 has faced delays already as it was originally planned to appear in the December-January time frame. Intel may be trying to take some light off from Phenom when it launches new models in the coming months.

Before getting too excited over the new chipset however, you should know it will bring only incremental advancement over the X38, with early benchmarks showing it to be pretty much neck and neck with the X38. The biggest addition initially touted is 1600MHz FSB support, which has already been put in some third-party boards that use the X38. And with the X38 not having huge performance margins over the more run-of-the-mill P35 chipset, one must wonder where the benefit is in spending more for "high-end" hardware.