Still a few weeks away
More than 30 Sandy Bridge motherboards based on the new B-3 stepping are currently listed in Europe, but none of them are actually available.
It will take a few weeks for vendors to ship them in any significant volumes and most people in the know expect them in early April. Vendors don’t appear to have gone to great lengths to yank bug ridden 6-series boards from retail and many of them, including major players like Asus, Gigabyte and MSI are still available. Some shops even carry Intel boards.
To distinguish new boards based on bug-free chips from the old ones, most companies have introduced the “B3” or “Rev.3” moniker in the designation, so they shouldn’t be hard to spot. We guess Intel will also push vendors to clearly distinguish the B3 boards, with new designations, stickers or box designs.
It will take a few weeks for vendors to ship them in any significant volumes and most people in the know expect them in early April. Vendors don’t appear to have gone to great lengths to yank bug ridden 6-series boards from retail and many of them, including major players like Asus, Gigabyte and MSI are still available. Some shops even carry Intel boards.
To distinguish new boards based on bug-free chips from the old ones, most companies have introduced the “B3” or “Rev.3” moniker in the designation, so they shouldn’t be hard to spot. We guess Intel will also push vendors to clearly distinguish the B3 boards, with new designations, stickers or box designs.
