As far as i understood the board works with 10 or 20 chips. Not with any other number. There are 2 groups of 10 chips each. Thats why both boards are nearly the same price i guess. A bitburner x is only a bitburner xx with 1 instead both 10-chip routes enabled.
You know this for a fact? Yes the chips are logically organised in chains, but initial discussions were quite clear there would be two boards. Hence why I say, check with the man himself.
Its how the cgminer works i believe. Also, initially he tested the board with only one chip, same thing with klondike k16.
I was talking in the physical sense. Will two boards be produced? The first the larger Bitburner XX hosting 20 chips, and then a smaller PCB holding 10 chips. The analogy is that if I want a klondike k16, I wouldn't expect to receive a k64 with only one of the segments populated. I think Burnin maybe hasn't been clear on his strategy here. In the early days after he switched to the larger XX design due to the high demand I recall there was talk that the XX would come first, and the X later. I don't recall an official update since.