Fall IDF 2007 – Intel DX38BT ‘BoneTrail’ Motherboard Preview

The Intel DX38BT BoneTrail Motherboard Nears Release

Last year I was able to post up the first pictures of the Intel D975XBX2 ‘Bad Axe 2’ motherboard in action and this year I was able to do the same with the Intel DX38BT ‘BoneTrail’ motherboard. I attended yet another overclocking/performance workshop here at IDF and were able to get an up close and personal look at the Intel DX38BT motherboard, but while I got pictures of the board and BIOS settings no live overclocking took place this time around.

When I was attending Computex back in June of this year over in Taiwan I was able to snap a picture of the upcoming Intel enthusiast board known as the Intel DX38BT “Bonetrail” motherboard. This board will be replacing the Intel D975XBX2 “Bad Axe 2” motherboard as the enthusiast platform by Intel. The board was missing the MOSFET cooling back in June, but now the heat sinks are installed and a few other differences can be noted as the board revision has changed a number of times over the past few months. The current revision of the board in September is pictured below.

For those of you that are not sure what you are looking at by just looking at the pictures here is a breakdown on what the board has to offer (Slightly Updated Version of FreeCableGuy’s Specs):

• Based on the next-generation Intel X38 Express chipset (MCH)
• Intel Duo/Quad/Extreme (dual and quad) Core 45nm support at up to 1333MHz FSB (Officially)
• Dual Channel DDR3 memory support with Fast Memory Access technology
• Intel ICH9 southbridge, 12 USB ports, supporting up to 6 additional PCI Express 1.1 lanes, GBit LAN 2x PCI Express 2.0 16x ports (backwards compatible with PCI Express 1.1 specification), Crossfire is supported, but SLI will not be.
• 6x SATA 3.0GB/s ports, Intel Maxtrix Storage Technology (RAID)
• Intel High Definition (HD) Audio

Intel expects to ship the first X38 boards on October 10, so if you’ve been waiting for one of these board to come out to replace you Intel D975XBX or D975XBX2 Bad Axe series motherboards you’ll have to wait just a few more weeks!

One of the other changes between the Intel DX38BT from June and the one from September is that the Intel legal depart changed the logo of the Intel DX38BT BoneTrail as it was deemed not the right direction for the company. If you look at the above left image you will notice that the board originally had skull and crossbones, which might have looked too much like standard toxic symbol even though the board and upcoming 45nm processors are totally lead free. Current 65nm Intel processors have lead in the C4 bumps, so the Intel 45nm processors will be the first lead free processors from both AMD and Intel. The new logo is a high tech looking skull with of course, the latest Intel logo inside.