X79 chipset price exposure: more than half of Z68

The Sandy Bridge-E processor and accompanying X79 chipset will be officially released in mid-November, and the latter's price is also surfacing today: $73. What does this mean? The current Z68 only sells for 48 dollars, X79 is more than half expensive.

Compared with the long-lasting high-end platform X58+ICH10R, the North Bridge and South Bridge chips cost US$39 and US$14 respectively, which is only US$53 in total, and the X79, a traditional South Bridge, is one-third more expensive.

It stands to reason that it is natural for high-end platforms to sell high prices, but this is not as good as the X79's identity, because it does not have native USB 3.0, and SAS/SATA 6Gbps specifications have shrunk dramatically, even with PCI-E 3.0. Not guaranteed. It doesn't look much better than the Z68. The spectacular four-channel memory actually comes from the processor and has nothing to do with the chipset.

By the way, the X58 is finally ready to take a break from the rivers and lakes. Orders after April 27th, 2012 will not be canceled and will not be returned. On October 5, 2012, they will eventually stop shipping.