In the infant stages of the motherboard design process, there are processes taken out that do not deal with the design itself, rather they deal with the end user will be wanting down the road. Remember, planning for processors, chipsets, and motherboards begins many months before they’ll ever end up on the retail market. In this time, manufacturers will evaluate hat they feel their consumer base will want, and also how to make a distinctive product that will stand out against the rest of the pack.

     The first steps in the design process for Intel start out with studies by various groups and individuals within the company detailing new chipset and integrated features. These groups are responsible for developing ideas and gathering feedback from the industry on what exactly it is that the consumers want in future products. Once this information has been gathered, Intel will decide which features it will want to implement in the future, and work then begins on next generation chipsets that will support these features. As these new products are developed, the information is passed on to the various motherboard manufacturers along with some reference designs and tools that they’ll need to accomplish their work in time for the product launch.