Intel has announced its first own-brand motherboard based on its Q963 chipset and designed for Core 2 Duo processors, and the shrinking number of Pentium D and Pentium 4 chips on the company's desktop CPU list.

The Desktop Board DQ963FX supports a 1,066MHz frontside bus clock but will run at 533MHz for older CPUs. The board has four memory slots capable of holding up to 8GB of 667MHz DDR 2 SDRAM. The 963 is an integrated chipset, so the board has its own GMA 3000 graphics engine. There are but three PCI Express x1 slots and three old-style PCI slots.

Intel said the board has Gigabit Ethernet courtesy of one of the company's own 82566DC controller chips, and 5.1-channel audio, driven by a SigmaTel STAC9227 codec. The board has ten USB 2.0 ports, four SATA interfaces and a single parallel ATA interface. There are the usual legacy ports too. ®

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