After having mentioned yesterday that motherboards based on Intel's newly developed 965 chipset will probably be hard to come by for a while (which will undoubtedly have many people quite peeved given that Conroe is just around the corner), The Inquirer have reported back with the real reasons for this foreseen shortage.

THE WORD IS that Intel is having problems with i965 motherboards. The problem, however, isn't with the chipset itself, that part is doing well enough, but related to IDE, or lack thereof.

In a case of great timing, it seems that the ICH8 doesn't have IDE ports, and, well, there is a distinct lack of S-ATA optical drives out there. Now let me see, where have I heard that before? Ah yes, now I recall. Talk about timing.