INTEL DX38BT EXTREME SERIES MOTHERBOARD SPECIFICATION AND FUTURE

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INTEL DX38BT EXTREME SERIES MOTHERBOARD

PRICE: 10,100/-

Intel DX38BT Motherboard Memory Bundle
Pulse-pounding gaming and high powered multimedia experiences require the ultimate in performance from your processor and motherboard. Intel® Desktop Board DX38BT is designed to unleash the power of Intel® Core™2 Extreme processors. With support for 1333 MHz front side bus, fast DDR3 memory and overclocking, Intel Desktop Board DX38BT delivers the gaming performance you deserve. Intel Desktop Board DX38BT supports Dolby Home Theatre and Microsoft Windows Vista Premium WHQL certified.

Intel’s new DX38BT takes over from the BadAxe 2 D975XBX2 as the king of the Extreme Series line of motherboards. As the model code suggests the DX38BT uses Intels’s own X38 chipset, which supports the latest 45nm Penryn CPUs. However, there’s a fly in the ointment. The Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers have started to release BIOS updates that add support for a 1,600MHz front side bus to their X38 models along with support for 1,600MHz DDR3 memory. The problem is that the 1,600MHz front side bus requires unofficial support that takes the X38 into the same territory as the X48 so Intel is unlikely to go down this route with the result that its latest and greatest motherboard, the DX38BT, doesn’t support its latest and greatest processor, the QX9770.

In addition to this rather fundamental problem the DX38BT doesn’t have any fancy must-have features and the passive cooling system looks positively staid when you compare it with the X38 offerings that we’ve already seen from the likes of ASUS, GIGABYTE AND MSI.

This gives you a strong hint about the capabilities of the DX38BT. After all, you only need loads of cooling if you expect the chipset will be generating excessive heat and in the case of an Intel chipset that only happens when you’re overclocking. The DX38BT isn’t a success in the overclocking department so you don’t need anything more than the two passive coolers that Intel supplies however there are a few noteworthy points about the hardware.

The Northbridge cooler is secured to a heat spreader on the underside of the motherboard with four stout screws instead of the usual feeble plastic pop pins. Second, Intel supplies a bizarre stick-on cap for the Southbridge cooler that carries a cartoon of a skull as a nod to the DX38BT’s codename of BoneTrail and the logo is also printed on the board.

You might feel that the Northbridge cooler requires the assistance of a fan but Intel hasn’t supplied a clip-on fan such as you see with many nForce 680i motherboards, oh no. What you get in the box is a tiny plastic frame that mounts on the fins of the Northbridge cooler and you have to supply the fan. Nice touch Intel! In the event you happen to have a 40mm fan that isn’t full of dust you can bet your boots that it spins at a ferocious speed and makes a terrible din.

INTEL DX38BT EXTREME SERIES MOTHERBOARD SPECIFICATION AND FUTURE

Specification

Processor

·                            Support for both 45nm & 65nm Intel Core2 Quad processors in an LGA775 socket with a 1333 or 1066 MHz system bus

·                            Support for both 45nm & 65nm Intel Core2 Extreme processors in an LGA775 socket with a 1333 or 1066 MHz system bus

·                            Support for both 45nm & 65nm Intel Core2 Duo processors in an LGA775 socket with a 1333 or 1066 MHz system bus

·                            Support for an Intel Pentium dual-core processor in an LGA775 socket with an 800 MHz system bus

Memory

·                            Four 240-pin DDR3 SDRAM Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM) sockets

·                            Support for DDR3 1333 MHz, DDR3 1066 MHz, or DDR3 800 MHz DIMMs

·                            Support for up to 8 GB of system memory

·                            Support for ECC and non-ECC memory

Chipset

·                            Intel? X38 Express Chipset

Audio

·                            Intel? High Definition Audio subsystem in the following configuration:

·                            8-channel (7.1) Dolby* Home Theater Audio subsystem with five analog audio outputs and two S/PDIF digital audio outputs (coaxial and optical) using the Sigmatel* 9274D audio codec

ATI CrossFire multi-GPU platform support

·                            ATI CrossFire technology enables two ATI* graphics cards to work together for ultimate 3D gaming performance and visual quality

·                            Full support of next generation ATI Crossfire

I/O control

·                            I/O controller for Consumer IR

LAN

·                            support Gigabit (10/100/1000 Mbits/sec) LAN subsystem using the Intel? 82566DC Gigabit Ethernet Controller

Peripheral interfaces

·                            Twelve USB 2.0 ports (8 external ports, 2 internal headers)

·                            Six Serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s ports, including 2 eSATA port with RAID support supplied by a Marvell* controller

·                            Two IEEE-1394a ports (1 external port, 1 internal header)

·                            Consumer IR receiver and emitter (via internal headers)

·                            One Parallel ATA IDE interface with UDMA 33, ATA-66/100 support (2 devices supported)

Expansion capabilities

·                            Two PCI Conventional* bus add-in card connectors (SMBus routed to both PCI Conventional bus add-in card connectors)

·                            One primary PCI Express* 2.0 x16 (electrical x16) bus add-in card connector

·                            One secondary PCI Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x16) bus add-in card connector

·                            One PCI Express* 1.0a x16 (electrical x4) bus add-in card connector

Physical Description

·                            ATX (12.00 inches by 9.60 inches [304.80 millimeters by 243.84 millimeters]