More information on the X38 delay

At the beginning of September, Intel decided it needed to take the X38 chipset back for a respin, but despite our constant pestering of motherboard manufacturers no one knew why it did it so late in the day.

After another short chat during dinner on the first evening here in Shanghai, it seems the Taiwanese can offer a little more insight: Intel's likely reasoning was either to have an internal re-jig of the core to reorganise it or to speed things up a bit.

Of course, the X38 may have been delayed to re-release the chip on 45nm, dropping the power usage, heat output and die size. Having measured a surprisingly low 52C from the Gigabyte GA-X38T-DQ6 in our first look, which contradicted our Computex reports about it being "super hot", we're more interested than ever to know which it is, or perhaps both?

There is no motherboard change needed for either as the chipset is a direct pin-for-pin drop in. I've been promised retail board sneak peeks later in the week, so I'll try to get some die shots for you... providing MSI doesn't throw me out for cutting off the integrated heatspreader!

While you're waiting, why don't you tell us your guesses on the X38 delay in our forums or in the comments section below.

Now where's my razor? I need to liberate the blades...