We've learned that Intel's X48 chipset is very limited and the motherboard manufacturers cannot get enough even for samples. They all claim that the volume orders are imaginary and that the launch has been mainly delayed due to poor availability.

Intel still has some three weeks to launch its chipset as it was promised for Q1 2008, but it doesn’t look that the volume availability of X38 chipset and motherboard will get any better. Intel might be keeping X48 chipsets, as it wants to get rid of the X38 it has, but this is something that we cannot confirm at press time.

We can also confirmed that X48 will remain the highest-end chipset for Core 2 Due / Quad family, as after this chipset comes only the Bloomfield Nehalem chipset.