Socket 1366

[fatus]

looking to go i7 as soon as i can but now i have looked at the motherboards and seen the price i might have to wait bit longer.
The Gigabyte EX58-UD3R @ £172 is the cheapest board on here and the highest over £300.
Is this just the way it is now that good boards are going to be in this price range?

 

[jambus]

Not at all, it's just there isn't much variation at the moment, not too many boards out there & the manufacturers know, if you want to go i7, you have to buy one of these boards, therefore they can jack the price up. When a different chipset other than X58 is released, it's likely prices will start to come down, don't hold your breath on that front though.

 

[reflux]

i7 is expensive because it's bleeding edge technology at the moment. The fact that it isn't taking off as Intel had hoped means it will stay expensive for the forseeable future.

Also bear in mind that they've segmented the market; so when the cheaper Nehalems hit they will likely be the Lynnfield variety, which lack the triple channel memory support and are therefore a different socket (LGA-1156).

We'll just have to see I guess

 

[Stu]

Most of the X58 boards are 8-layer PCBs due to the additional traces over previous generations, though I think the DFI board is only 6-layer. Typical X48 boards are 6-layer max. Anyway, more layers means more expense, so they are unlikely to be <£150 for some time.