x48 is apparently a new stepping for the chipset since X38 apparently suffers from some flaw.

Hawk1No more on-board Floppy support:(
IDE and PCI will be the next to go.

What do you mean? There's a (useless) floppy connector at the bottom of the board next to power & reset buttons. And I say useless, because every new motherboard has had USB boot for years now and memory stick can do what floppy did, silently, faster, bigger & better. Seriously plugging a floppy drive to this motherboard would be the same as using it with a PCI videocard

Haven't had floppy drive installed for few years now and wouldn't cry if I hadn't got IDE either. My 2 burners still use it, but SATA burners are like 30€. Same goes for PCI, have only my Audigy there, but PCI-e soundcard are out from asus and Creative.

Printer & com ports already went byebye, mouse PS/2 is next (alredy missing on some mobos). Keyboard PS/2 I'd miss, but that would be a readon to buy a new keyboard :) Latest and greatest motherboards aren't meant to be used with old tech imo, there are plenty of older motherboards for them.

I dont care about the size of the NB cooler, but I do care that its only 1-2 cm away from the cpu slot?? That will make it very hard to have some bigger cpu coolers!? That one small issue would make me stay away from x48, if it is similar on other x48 boards?? But Abit have always been stupid when it comes to board design, so I suspect this will only be with abit boards?

OnBoardWhat do you mean? There's a (useless) floppy connector at the bottom of the board next to power & reset buttons. And I say useless, because every new motherboard has had USB boot for years now and memory stick can do what floppy did, silently, faster, bigger & better. Seriously plugging a floppy drive to this motherboard would be the same as using it with a PCI videocard

Haven't had floppy drive installed for few years now and wouldn't cry if I hadn't got IDE either. My 2 burners still use it, but SATA burners are like 30€. Same goes for PCI, have only my Audigy there, but PCI-e soundcard are out from asus and Creative.

Printer & com ports already went byebye, mouse PS/2 is next (alredy missing on some mobos). Keyboard PS/2 I'd miss, but that would be a readon to buy a new keyboard :) Latest and greatest motherboards aren't meant to be used with old tech imo, there are plenty of older motherboards for them.

Ah, you are correct!:o Im used to just seeing the power/reset/speaker etc. connectors in that corner of the boards and overlooked it. And I agree with your other comments, that floppy's, IDE's and PCI's can go, but I've just been used to them for so long now. That's progress, I guess.

Wow, you learn something new everyday. I wasnt even aware the 2900 pros werent disabled xts...interesting. Motherboard looks awesome, but yall are right, that cooler is flippin huge.