Intel X48 - Much Ado about Nothing....
 

For now, it appears the hype surrounding the X48 chipset was overblown. While it is an improvement in certain cases, we have not seen it clearly outperforming the X38 yet. Maybe some additional octane from the upcoming QX9770 will provide additional horsepower, but for now, we have two almost equal performing engines under the hood.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3150&p=1

X38 was already not worth the price premium over P35 and this one is even less worth it.

this will only worsen when Intel puts memory controller on the CPU, motherboads will be all pretty much the same, AMD or Intel

For most parts, they are already. The main difference between boards is the bios that drives them, even when talking different manufacturers. And believe it or not, there are even people wo have tested this.

P31, P35, P45, X38, X48 + G31, G33, G35, G45 all inside a year's timeframe. And we will need still more new chipsets for Nehalem...