Curse

Evil Genius · Aug 06, 2008, 07:01 AM // 07:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

Nehalem won't be too pricey, don't worry. Save about 500 pounds, maybe 600 for a really nice Nehalem setup. Then again, you will need DDR3 (which is thankfully dropping in price pretty quickly)

Any ideas on how much the X58 motherboards will be? I read the chipset itself costs $70 to produce, so people are guessing $300+ for a motherboard. I know the 2.66Ghz CPU will be cheap, DDR3 has come down in price a lot and will further, and I'm just counting on motherboards being reasonably priced.

Cyb3r · Aug 06, 2008, 08:22 AM // 08:22

I think about 100-150$ for a decent board (correct me if wrong just making asumptions

)

Evil Genius · Aug 06, 2008, 09:57 AM // 09:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyb3r

I think about 100-150$ for a decent board (correct me if wrong just making asumptions

)

Yes you are definitely wrong for a few reasons:

1. X58 is Intel's extreme chipset (just like X48, X38 etc) and new technology (new number of pins, Triple channel RAM etc).

2. The cheapest X48 motherboard I saw on newegg (now) was $160: on release all X48 boards were probably a bit higher. This alone would indicate no X58 motherboards will be under $160 upon release.

3. Boards with six memory slots will need six to eight layers. Mainstream boards normally only have four layers, while six layers are used in workstations only. More layers = more cost.

4. The X48 chipset alone (not the whole motherboard) costs $70 to manufacture. In comparison the 790i Ultra costs $100 to manufacture and the boards sell for $312 and up on newegg months after release.

Hope I didn't sound too blunt or insulting because that wasn't my intention. Most "info" at this point is just speculation/educated guesses. I'm sure Intel will release a mainstream chipset (like P45 in comparison to X48) a few months later for the price range you estimated.