Intel Set To Ship First 45nm-Ready Board To Channel
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker is also set to release a sub-$70 CPU-motherboard assembly for building low-price PC desktops, as well as a new free software tool that opens the door for end-user management of vPro-based desktop systems, said Intel North America Channel Marketing Manager Todd Garrigues.
Intel's Desktop Board DX38BT for the Intel Extreme Series will sell for under $250 at retail, Garrigues said. In addition to supporting current processors, the X38BT has native support for the Penryn-class line of 45nm microprocessors the chipmaker will start shipping Nov. 12. The board has a front side bus speed of 1333MHz, two full bandwidth PCI Express 2.0 x16 connectors, integrated LAN, dual-channel DDR3 RAM, e-SATA and up to 12 USB 2.0 ports. It's the first desktop board from Intel to support PCI Express 2.0 and comes with a new overclocking tool for boosting performance on the Core 2 Extreme processor.
Retail versions of the board will include a full version of the game Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 and will sell for less than $250, he said.
The second desktop board from Intel, the D201GLY2, comes with a Celeron 220 processor and is geared towards building sub-$300 desktop systems, according to Garrigues. Included in the package is a PCI connector, integrated LAN, single-channel DDR2 memory and up to six USB ports.
Although the low-price CPU-motherboard assembly was originally targeted at emerging markets, Garrigues said, "We ended up finding out that there were markets for that product even in mature markets, like in kiosks for school districts, for example."
The new vPro product is a system and security management interface called Intel System Defense Utility (SDU). It's a value-add utility that system builders can install on vPro-based desktops to give SMB end-users their own access to some of vPro's signature security and management capabilities, Garrigues said. The channel executive said the new tool rounds out Intel's vPro offering, with SDU providing free access to vPro features while third-party tools from managed services and system administration software vendors covers mid-level to enterprise-level management of vPro-based systems.
Both of the new boards come boxed and along with the new vPro product, are "channel-specific products," he said. The LY2 and the vPro tool are already shipping, while the X38BT "will be on disty shelves before Thanksgiving," Garrigues said.