Intel has sent out a notice to inform partners that the X48 chipset delivery will be delayed to WW12, which is in March. No motherboard manufacturers will get chipsets before that and that includes the first tier like ASUS and Gigabyte. Although there is no reason provided by Intel in the notice but it is definitely not due to the 'one of the first-tier motherboard makers still holds a large volume of X38 chipset inventory' rumors.