Intel DX48BT2 @ [H]

Intel DX48BT2 - Intel’s own motherboard answer to its X48 chipset, the DX48BT2, holds a lot of promise. From its sleek looks to its feature rich design, is this board is lining up to be a serious choice for those wanting to go an unbeaten enthusiast path?

The flip side to all of this is that the DX48BT2 performed beautifully at stock speeds in terms of performance and stability and makes us want to say something nice about it, then we realize it costs $250. That is right, DX48BT2 is not for your mom either. Epic fail.

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Love the end. Epic fail! haha

What a shame. Intel is uniquely positioned to provide a "the best in the world" product and apparently does not get it, not even close. Kinda makes one wonder about all the larrabee noise recently.

X48 motherboards are a great product choice for the enthusiast, just make sure you get one built by ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, or XFX.

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Didn't know EVGA and XFX did Intel chipsets? Must be reading this wrong.

I really want to like Intel mottherboards too, except they're more expensive, skimp on the features, and have a completely unappealing layout.

Maybe someday.

I got one of these on Ebay for $90. Its been great at stock, but overclocking has been nearly impossible.

Blazemore said:

Didn't know EVGA and XFX did Intel chipsets? Must be reading this wrong.

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I was referring to their recent NVIDIA chipset based motherboards for Intel CPUs which have worked very well.

What BIOS did you use for testing? I looked at the screenshots, but couldn't find that BIOS string on Intels website.

bholstege said:

What BIOS did you use for testing? I looked at the screenshots, but couldn't find that BIOS string on Intels website.

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We used both 1521 and 1538. To be clear, we finished this testing months ago and have been waiting and watching for some big bios release that turned this into a "new" motherboard, but we have not seen that happen or any sort of indication that we should retest in any way.

In my experience the BIOS updates have made the BIOS more usable, and made overclocking easier by improving the watch dog. I end up using the watchdog, because I have been totally unsuccessful in getting my e8400 to work above stock speeds. I ended up boosting it to a blistering FSB 334, so that it showed up as 3ghz instead of 2.99ghz in CPU-Z.

lol intel doens't want overclocking on their own board, so u have to buy the more expensive chip . it is epic fail though when said chip doesn't even work at all lol.

so u guys don't even recommend dfi x48 boards?

Um, wtf guys?

First of all, why were you using the 1538 BIOS? 1554 resolved most of the oc'ing issues experienced with the shipping BIOS. There's also 1782 BIOS out now as well.

We have a Q9450 @ 3.4 on this board. Which is not too shabby at all. It's CPU limited for sure. Same results obtained with the chip on a buddy's DFI X38.

I mean really, I have to ask, why did you not update the BIOS on the board before publishing this review?

I usually like the reviews you guys do, but this one is just total bullshit, I'm sorry to say.

matrix563 said:

so u guys don't even recommend dfi x48 boards?

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We haven't done a review on a DFI motherboard in quite a long time. I do not know the reason behind that so I'll have to defer to Kyle on that. However without having any experience with them I certainly don't feel comfortable recommending DFI boards. Additionally I've had mixed results with DFI boards. So until I have a good experience with a DFI board I'll not be comfortable recommending one.

As for the layout of the Intel DX48BT2, I've got a couple of complaints as well. I wish it had the right angle SATA ports on the board and the DIMM slots are too close to the primary PCI-Express x16 slot. Finally Morry is right on the money about the capacitors being too close to the CPU socket or simply being too tall. They are. Still you can fit heat sinks like the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme on the board as its' base is actually fairly small and most of the heatsink is further away from the board.

I've got some experience with these boards as well. They're as solid as solid gets in terms of stability. the BIOS is weak as far as options go, (just like the D5400XS's BIOS) and it doesn't shine above anyone else's products on features. Still it is solid feature wise.

I hate to post again, but this review seriously has me baffled.

Have you guys not seen the thread on XS related to this board, and the X38BT. If you had, you'd have noticed the first thing people recommend, is tossing on the 1554 BIOS (Dated 03/01 FYI).

I'm incredibly disappointed with the [H] as far as this review goes. I guess that's saying something, since it's the first time I've said that since...ever. Since I've joined anyway.

TheInternet1980 said:

Um, wtf guys?

First of all, why were you using the 1538 BIOS? 1554 resolved most of the oc'ing issues experienced with the shipping BIOS. There's also 1782 BIOS out now as well.

We have a Q9450 @ 3.4 on this board. Which is not too shabby at all. It's CPU limited for sure. Same results obtained with the chip on a buddy's DFI X38.

I mean really, I have to ask, why did you not update the BIOS on the board before publishing this review?

I usually like the reviews you guys do, but this one is just total bullshit, I'm sorry to say.

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I would be more than happy to read about the board's successes if you would supply links.

As we have noted twice (WTF RTFA) this work was done a couple months ago and we have been waiting to see things get better before reporting, and we have not. Again please provide links to specifics, otherwise I aint buying it.

matrix563 said:

so u guys don't even recommend dfi x48 boards?

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No I do not recommend DFI motherboards at all. Its company support is almost non-existent in my experience. DFI sells so few motherboards in North America that I consider them to not be a serious player in the North American market. DFI continually has compatibility issues we do not see in other brands, or at least used to. So we stopped reviewing them quite a while ago. We have pinged DFI here and there since then, but they seem to have no interest in supplying review samples, so we have moved on to what we see as top selling brands in North America.

TheInternet1980 said:

I hate to post again,

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But you did....to say the same thing again....within 20 minutes....without allowing anyone to post to answer your concerns.

Good review, surprising too. I always thought you could count on intel boards to be reliable, if nothing else.

On a review note, I'd love to see an [H] EPIC FAIL logo in line with the FAIL logo you used in the PSU review.

I really want to hear if what TheInternet1980 said is true... this board is almost EXACTLY what I need, and here's why: I want to watercool my Northbridge, but EVERY enthusiast motherboard I've seen recently has heatipipes running everywhere, to and from the northbridge cooler! Makes it a little hard to put a waterblock in without replacing every heatsink attached to it. If this things OCing issues can be resolved, great! If not, can anyone recommend me a good OCing motherboard that has a (completely) independent northbridge heatsink? I'm all ears!

djBon2112 said:

I really want to hear if what TheInternet1980 said is true... this board is almost EXACTLY what I need, and here's why: I want to watercool my Northbridge, but EVERY enthusiast motherboard I've seen recently has heatipipes running everywhere, to and from the northbridge cooler! Makes it a little hard to put a waterblock in without replacing every heatsink attached to it. If this things OCing issues can be resolved, great! If not, can anyone recommend me a good OCing motherboard that has a (completely) independent northbridge heatsink? I'm all ears!

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Conversing with him via PM, his entire proof leads to one thread at XS with one post about it fixing problems and then the guys was still not stable at 450. So I still stand on what we have to say here. There are simply too many other good solutions to think about buying one with issues.

Wow, depressing. I was really expecting better, in terms of stability, from Intel. I knew the overclocking wasn't going to be good, but to see it crash and burn rather easily is depressing. I'm glad I opted to skip this mobo in my new build (see sig) and go straight for an ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution.

Thanks guys for a great review.

Brain_ReCall said:

Wow, depressing. I was really expecting better, in terms of stability, from Intel. I knew the overclocking wasn't going to be good, but to see it crash and burn rather easily is depressing. I'm glad I opted to skip this mobo in my new build (see sig) and go straight for an ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution.

Thanks guys for a great review.

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The DX48BT2 has been solid for me. I'm using one in my girlfiends machine. I have tried overclocking it and I've not had very much success in that area.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=166289&page=57

if ur still interested on the intel x38 or x48 motherboards this guys should be able to help u out

I have had my best luck with DFI MB's and I have tried many brands. I usually skip the MSI, and Asus boards are nice but usually don't overclock as well, although I do hear their x48 boards are decent this time around. Tried gigabyte boards, Epox boards, Abit boards, and DFI, etc, and worked on friends Soyo POS. There are sometimes some support issues with certain memory etc. However they offer allot more bios options than many other brands so you can't really complain when a certain option not even offered by others does not work.

I currently have the DFI LT X48 and I just popped my Q9450 in and its running 3200 MHZ x4 prime stable for 4 hours before I ended the test and PC has not had any problems yet. This is 3200MHZ @ STOCK voltages MB and CPU and Memory. BTW the DFI is perfect for liquid cooling because it does not have heat pipes everywhere but has more cooling than that Intel board.

My last DFI build, DFI Expert with Opteron 64, has been the best computer I have built to date in the long term, it still faster than my C2's n such at work DDR1 and all.... If you want more info XS is a good forum for DFi support, lots of people use DFI over there, and IMO Asus is overpriced for what you get most of the time. I don't know why they are so popular. (I currently have a PC using one and I was not impressed, but it also has not died like the epox it replaced).

The Intel MB looks nice but my DFI has Solid state caps for the same price that are not in the way. The support however is not that great but then again most companies have terrible support anyways. Right now there are some very promising beta bioses for the DFI boards, I'm going to flash my LT to a UT bios (602) tonight and go for 4 GHZ.

Sorry Kyle, please don't ban me. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I will recommend DFI they seem to be higher quality than most others, other than support which I have not had to use yet.

I write this post from my trusty Intel D875PBZ. That's right, it is over 5 years old. It is the only motherboard with an Intel chipset I've had that has lasted more than 2 years. It just plain works. XP Pro --> SP1 --> SP2 --> Vista Ultimate --> SP1, this board has given me zero problems. I edit audio/video on this PC, and while the Pentium 4 is showing its age, the board keeps on trucking never letting me down once.

People don't buy Intel motherboards for overclocking. They buy them for stability and reliability. It is funny because if you read this whole article except for the last page, you would surmise this is a pretty good board. Enthusiast != Overclocker.

"Epic Fail" is how I would describe Kyle's misunderstanding of those who appreciate Intel motherboards for what the Intel boards are and what the Intel boards do very well.

PSU's have the HardOCP "FAIL" logo of disapproval, so we need the HardOCP "Epic Fail" logo now.

hellokeith said:

I write this post from my trusty Intel D875PBZ. That's right, it is over 5 years old. It is the only motherboard with an Intel chipset I've had that has lasted more than 2 years. It just plain works. XP Pro --> SP1 --> SP2 --> Vista Ultimate --> SP1, this board has given me zero problems. I edit audio/video on this PC, and while the Pentium 4 is showing its age, the board keeps on trucking never letting me down once.

People don't buy Intel motherboards for overclocking. They buy them for stability and reliability. It is funny because if you read this whole article except for the last page, you would surmise this is a pretty good board. Enthusiast != Overclocker.

"Epic Fail" is how I would describe Kyle's misunderstanding of those who appreciate Intel motherboards for what the Intel boards are and what the Intel boards do very well.

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I have an epox MB that is over 5 years old and still working, and it was super cheap. I have old abit boards about 9 years old that still run, but they are a bit too old to use for anything. I believe I have both the Abit BX and BX2 both still work and were always stable, even with the old Celly 300a always over clocked. Alot of baords can do that?

Looks like Intel have laid an egg. Who the hell would pay $250 for this?
The CPU VRM arrangement looks a bit different from the arrangement seen on other boards. I have mostly seen even number of phases. It would be interesting to see the PWM controller being used.

hellokeith said:

I write this post from my trusty Intel D875PBZ. That's right, it is over 5 years old. It is the only motherboard with an Intel chipset I've had that has lasted more than 2 years. It just plain works. XP Pro --> SP1 --> SP2 --> Vista Ultimate --> SP1, this board has given me zero problems. I edit audio/video on this PC, and while the Pentium 4 is showing its age, the board keeps on trucking never letting me down once.

People don't buy Intel motherboards for overclocking. They buy them for stability and reliability. It is funny because if you read this whole article except for the last page, you would surmise this is a pretty good board. Enthusiast != Overclocker.

"Epic Fail" is how I would describe Kyle's misunderstanding of those who appreciate Intel motherboards for what the Intel boards are and what the Intel boards do very well.

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While I share your basic views on Intel motherboards, I have to agree with Kyle. As an enthusiast motherboard the Intel DX48BT2 does fail. It has a miserable BIOS (not enough options) and poor overclockability in my own experience.

I'd like to point out that currently I am running no less than four Intel brand motherboard based systems at my house. When I need a system to just work, Intel boards are often at the top of my list. When I want to overclock, they are on the bottom of my list. So normally my gaming systems aren't running Intel brand boards.

Justintoxicated said:

Sorry Kyle, please don't ban me. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I will recommend DFI they seem to be higher quality than most others, other than support which I have not had to use yet.

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You aint bothering me bro. DFI is far from higher quality, you are just getting lucky is all. I know, I get all the boo-hoo emails from people that buy them, then get shafted trying to get service.

hellokeith said:

I write this post from my trusty Intel D875PBZ. That's right, it is over 5 years old. It is the only motherboard with an Intel chipset I've had that has lasted more than 2 years. It just plain works. XP Pro --> SP1 --> SP2 --> Vista Ultimate --> SP1, this board has given me zero problems. I edit audio/video on this PC, and while the Pentium 4 is showing its age, the board keeps on trucking never letting me down once.

People don't buy Intel motherboards for overclocking. They buy them for stability and reliability. It is funny because if you read this whole article except for the last page, you would surmise this is a pretty good board. Enthusiast != Overclocker.

"Epic Fail" is how I would describe Kyle's misunderstanding of those who appreciate Intel motherboards for what the Intel boards are and what the Intel boards do very well.

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875 - Great chipset.

Yes, my misunderstanding obviously. Too bad you did not read the two sentences prior.

The flip side to all of this is that the DX48BT2 performed beautifully at stock speeds in terms of performance and stability and makes us want to say something nice about it, then we realize it costs $250. That is right, DX48BT2 is not for your mom either. Epic fail.

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If you want to pay $250 for a stock speed motherboard, knock yourself out, I think that makes you a cash outlay enthusiast rather than a hardware enthusiast though. And it is not like we just got into this business that you think we are misunderstanding. Hehe, maybe we should start HardStockFSB.com?

Using 1782 bios, loving the board. Currently have my e8500 at 3.6 ghz and haven't had any problems.. yet.. still tweaking.

Anyways, not a very good review imo.

i was really hoping to see that fail logo along with the last sentence at the end of this review. heh heh

demonx said:

Using 1782 bios, loving the board. Currently have my e8500 at 3.6 ghz and haven't had any problems.. yet.. still tweaking.

Anyways, not a very good review imo.

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What settings are you using? I can't overclock my CPU at all

I own a DX48BT2 board. I have to agree that when the article was written a few months ago, the board had alot of problems. It's strange but I don't even see the 1538 BIOS even listed in the release notes link. 1554 fixed alot of issues but there was one major change that hindered overclocking. In 1554, Reference Voltage Override was not functional. I've since updated to the new 1782 and currently have my E8500 @ 3.8GHz. My experiences with this board since updating to 1782 has been good. It overclocks ok and is completely stable. I'm sure if I mess with it some more I might be able to get a higher oc. Even though this board is not as fancy, feature filled, and the BIOS is not as tweakable as some other X48 boards out there, I'm still glad I bought it and I'm very happy with my experiences with this board after 1782. If you want something more fancy and tweakable get an ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, DFI, or Foxconn but be ready to pay a premium for them.

hellokeith said:

Intel D875PBZ - Great motherboard.



Keep in mind I am not questioning or criticizing your experience - I frequent HardOCP daily and greatly appreciate you and the rest of the staff's valuable (albeit sometimes unnecessarily sensationalistic) input on PC hardware - but I am adamantly disagreeing your assessment of "epic fail". 80% of this article was positive about the motherboard, do you not think "epic fail" is gross overstatement? Fanbois who cannot perform critical thinking will come [H], skip to the last page, and go post that comment all over the net with no context.

So yes, it is your misunderstanding. Intel motherboards are like Volvo's. They are not known for their performance or styling, but rock solid stability. And some people value that stability and are enthusiastic about paying the premium. Again I say, Enthusiast != Overclocker.

Perhaps the mistake was you approaching an Intel motherboard like you approach Xtreme Fusion OC+++ motherboard-of-the-week? Car and Driver does not compare Volvo's to Porsches, for good reason..

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Intel boards are known for stability however this time around, Intel is marketing this board as an overclocker for the enthusiast crowd. Intel raised the expectations of this board by marketing it as such. I do think in this regard it was an EPIC FAIL considering it was tested with the BIOS 1538 and the problems they experienced at the time it was written. However alot has changed since then. To give Intel a fair shake, maybe this article is in need of an update and retested with BIOS 1782 since it was released 3 weeks before this article was published.

djBon2112 said:

Alright then, thanks Kyle! Guess I just have to keep looking, or make my own heatsinks!

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I've one of the Intel DX48BT2 motherboards and an OCZ Vendetta 2 heatsink. Works just fine! However I do have the orientation pointing towards the fan on my PSU to have it clear the MCH heatsink with an optional 40mm fan attached (a bracket is included in the kit to allow easy addition of a 40mm FAN if desired).

Personally, I believe the FAN and the 1554 is what allows me to do pretty decent with this board. The only other draw back is that my Q6600 is an L0805x with a VID of 1.325.

I think that the cooling solution chosen for the X48 chipset is part of what holds the success of this board back. The passive aluminum heatsink is just to low a solution and the thermal protection features of the board sabotage the OC potential. With either the 40mm fan attached, or a superior third-party cooling solution, one can push the X48 chipset itself further on this board.

To bad this review doesn't take advantage of a suggestion I posted in another thread a while back. A thread asking if HardOCP was going to review this board. In that, I suggested the 1554 or better BIOS to see if their review would be better than some of the much earlier March reviews with the same older BIOS. See http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032656416&postcount=85 It would have been interesting to see the results being different or not for HardOCP's experience. That coupled with the use of the optional 40mm fan bracket with a decent 40mm fan would be interesting to see. Perhaps you could do a recap after those changes?

However this review does have merit on out of the box performance.

If one does not want to:

1. Update the BIOS to 1554 or 1782. (Reading the release-notes for the 1554 shows significant updates/patching to the watchdog feature, something the review suggested could be improved. Would it not be interesting to see if those watchdog improvements resolve those issues? http://downloadmirror.intel.com/16604/ENG/BT_1782_ReleaseNotes.pdf is the notes for 1782, but if you scroll down, it also lists the 1554 fixes. Numerous over the previous BIOS editions.)

2. Add 40mm Fan to MCH using optional bracket or third-party cooling solution.

3. Remove and throw away the black bonetrail badge that is placed on the south bridge. Sure it looks cool, but sure adds to the heat.

Then it's just only an ultra-stable stock board at a higher price.

Granted, HardOCP has lots of systems to test and the board itself may have already been returned. It would just be interesting to do a future review-redux to see if improvements are had with the above suggestions.

hellokeith said:

"Epic Fail" is how I would describe Kyle's misunderstanding of those who appreciate Intel motherboards for what the Intel boards are and what the Intel boards do very well.

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Ouch, that's a little bit too harsh. I've one of these boards and competely understand how HardOCP can have come to the epic fail decision based on the expectation of top notch overclocking.

If one tries to push for maximum results out of the box with the suggestions in my post above, the results are less than expected. The only issue I have is could someone go back with the same processor and performed the same recommended changes and retest. Do to the high variability of the G0 batches/lots and the variety of VIDs, it would be far better to see the changes with the same CPU.

Brain_ReCall said:

Wow, depressing. I was really expecting better, in terms of stability, from Intel.

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Oh it's stable, very stable, extremely stable. The issue is overclocking. It's less than stellar at a stock out of the box configuration. Update the BIOS and improve the cooling and the results improve. However, I don't have the other boards used in the review on hand to do direct comparisons with my setup. I just found that after the suggested changes, I could push my system even further, I expect that HardOCP would find similar results. The question is does this get closer to parity with the other X48 competitors?

I do have to point out something. The BIOS has a large number of configuration choices if one goes into the advanced settings. Sometimes these are not too clear. If you follow the XS thread, you'll see I was posting there about USB keyboard issues during post. This is because I experimented with the UEFI boot selection to enable and this prevented Legacy USB support from working correctly (or waited until the OS took over, don't really understand that UEFI stuff). I also mentioned that it was stable for me there and that the S3 standby and the USB issues were my only complaint. After the help on that forum, those two issues are now non-existant for me. Ultra stable functionality on the S3 standby now and I can get to the BIOS without the use of the configuration jumper (taks you to BIOS without any keyboard presses, solved my need to get into the BIOS before I learned about the UEFI-USB issue).

hellokeith said:

Perhaps the mistake was you approaching an Intel motherboard like you approach Xtreme Fusion OC+++ motherboard-of-the-week? Car and Driver does not compare Volvo's to Porsches, for good reason..

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Yeah, but if Volvo comes out with a new model and sells it for as much as a Porsche would cost you, the comparison becomes reasonable. This board is $250. That's insane for a part that's only good for stable stock speed operation. There are far less expensive parts that will fulfull that same function for people who don't need "Xtreme", and far superior parts at that price point that will go above and beyond it.

Avrithor said:

Yeah, but if Volvo comes out with a new model and sells it for as much as a Porsche would cost you, the comparison becomes reasonable. This board is $250. That's insane for a part that's only good for stable stock speed operation. There are far less expensive parts that will fulfull that same function for people who don't need "Xtreme", and far superior parts at that price point that will go above and beyond it.

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yeah. If the board was $100 or even $150, it would be a different story. But it's waaaaay too expensive. $250 = epic fail.

(oh, and by the way, I am still running an i875 chipset as well, but on an Asus board. Intel branded motherboards don't have nearly as many features.)

Maybe you guys should come out with a series of Fail logos. For example, this could come with the "OC Fail" logo, and the "Price Fail" logo.