Published in Transportation

X58 priced less than X48

by on09 October 2008

Image

By quite a margin

We asked one of our sources about the price difference between Intel's X48 and X58 chipsets, as the price difference between X48 and X58 motherboards seems to be quite high and in all honesty, we didn't expect the answer we got, as the X58 chipset is a lot cheaper than the X48.

In fact, the X58 is over US$20 per chip if you're going by the Intel list prices, than the X48, which is no small difference. This brought on our next question, why is it then that the X58 motherboards are so much more expensive than X48 motherboards?

The answer to that question comes down to more than one thing, but a valid reason is the fact that the PCB cost is so much higher. All X58 boards that we've seen to date have an eight-layer PCB and for a motherboard manufacturer the cost of making an eight-layer PCB over a six-layer PCB is about 25 percent higher.

We don't know exactly what the price of a motherboard PCB is, but we're sure it's a fair share of the cost of a motherboard. However, we have a feeling that in this case, a lot of the motherboard manufacturers want to cash in on the new platform and they also want to sell their X58 products at a higher price than their X48 models, since it's the latest and greatest model in their line-up.

We're sure that if you give it some time, we'll see the X58 motherboard prices come down to a more reasonable level, but we don't know how long this will take. As for now, it's the early adopters that'll end up suffering the inflated prices.
Last modified on 10 October 2008
Rate this item
(0 votes)