Getting the upper hand in the computer chipsets field is hard work; companies like AMD, Nvidia, VIA and Intel sink millions of dollars into the always next-generation offerings designed for the best computers of the day, or even upcoming ones. So when a truly revolutionary piece of silicon comes along, it becomes the next benchmark aimed at by the chipset manufacturers, to achieve, or to surpass.

                                             With a cool industrial / techno look, the box itself is a treat.

Having said that, the high-end is where the revolution always starts, and the extreme high end of the market always gives the players who field products in it the best coverage and the most media mileage. This is of course no surprise, seeing how the high-end of a product range always contains the most features and the most acronyms to entice the buyer with. Intel’s X38 is the latest top-level chipset to come out of their skunkworks.

                                             The board in its entirety. What's up with the pink and lavender?

Taking over as Intel’s “Extreme” chipset from the somewhat unpopular 975X chipset, the X38, as with all previous high end chipsets, has a whole laundry list of features that is most impressive, to say the least, especially on paper. Some notable features include support for full x16 lanes for both PCI-X slots, along with PCI-X 2.0 support, DDR3, and Intel’s first front-end explicitly designed for overclocking out of the box.

                                             And here's the laundry list of features!

The MSI X38 Platinum is one of the first to actually use the X38’s support for DDR3 and install four dual-channel slots on the board. It is also one of the first I’ve seen with 4 full-length (physical) x16 slots installed, two of whichhave a full 16 lanes each, and touts quad crossfire setups as part of its feature set. Of course, MSI also includes its nominal CoreCell technology for system monitoring and adjustment, no doubt optimized to work with Intel’s Xtreme Tuning Utility.

                                             The first two PCI-X slots are set apart, good for dual slot solutions.

The MSI’s X38 chipset also gives it all the usual compatibility options, like support for Intel’s upcoming 45nm parts and Fast Memory Access and the aforementioned DDR3 support, while the accompanying ICH9 southbridge connects the SATA and USB connectors, sound, IDE, floppy, and additional connectors and PCI-X slots. This includes a single legacy PCI and x1 PCI-X slot, as well as two full size (physical) slots with 4 lanes each.

                                             Dual core cell for easy control of motherboard status and frequencies.

So now we have a board taking advantage of all the important features that the X38 has to offer, unlike previous offerings which only included DDR2 support in the interest of cost-saving, since DDR3 is undoubtedly much more expensive than DDR2. In addition to these main features, MSI includes a lot of tasty extras, starting with the heatpipe system named “Circu-pipe” – a feature that first appeared on their P35 Platinum. This heatpipe system has a prominent roller-coaster type fitting sitting on top of the northbridge, with additional copper fittings covering the southbridge, IDT chip, and power caps near the CPU socket.

                                             Dual channel DDR3 supports up to 8GB.                          
This circular thingamajig has been getting onto a lot of front pages recently, since it’s so eye-catching. Another unique feature is the four-character mini-LED display located at the lower-left corner of the board, which is used to display POST messages like “MEM”, “CPU”, “VGA” and the like. It tells the user exactly where it is in the boot-up sequence, which is a good thing. It settles down to displaying “MSI” when boot-up is finished.

                                             Heatpipe systems are getting more elaborate.

The first PCI-X slot is right, when filled with a high-end, full-length card, juts right up to the lower latches of the memory slots, a tight fit for changing memory modules. Four of the six SATA slots are angles parallel to the board, for easy attachment. The two yellow PCI-X slots earmarked for the third and fourth Crossfire cards are beside each other, which means only single slot solutions will work here. Space around the CPU area is also at a premium; the heatpipe system will definitely cut down your choices on aftermarket air-cooling options. Balancing all these issues is of course the fact that this is such a jam-packed board, not just physically, but in its features list. One thing that’s bothersome though, is the seemingly slap-dash work with connecting some of the PWM components – whether due to design or this being a test unit, we’re not sure – but symmetrical lines and clean ranks of components definitely will look better than this.

                                             Onboard LED indicator eases diagnostics.

Connectivity options abound, with the rear panel playing host to a total of 8 USB 2.0, 2 x Gigabit LAN, 2 x e-SATA, FireWire A, Optical Out, the usual 6-plug sound connectors and PS2 connectors, plus a tiny clear CMOS switch looking out innocently in the middle of the panel. There are 6 SATA 3.0Gbps connectors onboard, complemented by a single IDE and floppy connector. On-board power and reset switches are present for the perpetual tinkerer, as well as front-panel connectors for four more USB slots and a FireWire connector.

                                             Right-angle SATA connectors makes for easyinstallation.

Now if this was a monologue on the feature set of the motherboard, I’d be out of breath by now, but thankfully my keyboard hasn’t even broken down yet. A quick run through on our test bench revealed no problems, but since we do not have four Crossfire-ready videocards on hand, our testing is understandably limited, especially after the excitement caused by MSI’s (somewhat inaccurate) description of quad-card video. To explain simply, only two physical slots will give the full x16 lanes per card, although that’s somewhat moot due to modern videocards being unable to saturate the bandwidth available with x16 lanes.

                                             Third and fourth PCI-X slots connected to the southbridge.

At the same time, these lanes can’t be transferred to the other two physical card slots, due to the fact that these slots are controlled by the ICH9 southbridge. The yellow slots only offer x4 lanes each, which will surely limit the effectiveness of any high-end card plugged into them. Regardless, Crossfire solutions is not very popular anyway, since the performance crown is still with Intel, and anyone willing to shell out the moolah for four cards will surely want the fastest cards anyway, which are Nvidia based (at least for now).

                                             Cute but deadly: the clear CMOS switch!

DDR3 is also still an iffy preposition, with prices and availability still leaving much to be desired. Though no fault of the board itself, the fact that much improvement can be had by simply waiting for technologies to mature and optimizations to be performed makes this board both a moving target for competitors wanting to make the best of the extreme tech, and a moving target that’s a canvas for constant improvements that will leave the consumers with the best chipset and best motherboard they can buy eventually, at least until the next high-end chipset comes along.

Watch out for a full review in an upcoming issue of HWM. More pictures to follow.

                                              External SATA connectors.

                                             The "Circu" pipe in all its glory.

                                            The well-endowed southbridge.

                                             Package contents, excluding the motherboard.

                                             The CPU socket surrounded by a goodly number of power components.