Chips and mainboards maker Intel Corp. said Friday it would discontinue its own mainboards based on i925X chipset, the former top core-logic from the company. The firm did not explain the move, but the possible reason might be introduction of similar i925XE product that sported 1066MHz processor system bus.

“This product discontinuance announcement on the Desktop Board D925XCV and D925XBC family allows Intel customers to take delivery up to May 1, 2005. If you are currently using the above order codes of the Desktop Board D925XCV and D925XBC family, be sure to contact your authorized Intel representative and make them aware of your requirements through this time frame,” an Intel’s statement to partners says.

Intel’s 925XE chipset is a speed-bin of the i925X that has been available for a while. The chipset sports PCI Express x16 bus for graphics cards, dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM memory with up to 533MHz clock-speed and processors with 800MHz and 1066MHz Quad Pumped Bus. The i925XE memory controller hub may be paired with ICH6-series of I/O controllers that bring high definition audio and advanced RAID technologies.

Besides new platform Intel also recently introduced its Pentium 4 Extreme Edition processor clocked at 3.46GHz with 1066MHz processor system bus. Typically higher-speed processor system bus increases data speed between the central processing unit and the rest of the system. However, in not all the cases such increase positively affects performance.

All orders placed on or after the product discontinuance announcement date on January 1, 2005, are non-cancelable and non-returnable. The last discontinued product return date is March 1, 2005.

Intel had only two above-mentioned mainboards in its arsenal. Currently Intel supplies another two i925XE-based mainboards with approximately similar specs compared to its i925X products in ATX and microATX form-factors.