MSI Enables DDR2 and DDR3 Support on the Same Motherboard

MSI managed to gather an impressive crowd at its booth during the CeBIT 2009 show in Hanover, Germany. The Taiwanese company brought a number of new products, including the highly-anticipated X-Slim series of portable computer systems, designed on Intel's ULV platform and meant to provide users with a PC alternative to Apple's MacBook Air system. However, for those who haven't forgotten that MSI is also a leading manufacturer of motherboards, the company had some interesting products, including the 790GX-8D and the P45-8D.

These two boards have one thing in common, mainly that they provide users with support for both DDR2 and DDR3 memory configurations. Suggestively nicknamed “Memory Lover,” these two boards are equipped with no less than 8 memory DIMMs, with support for dual-channel DDR2 and DDR3. Amazing as that may sound, they were on display at the company's booth, during CeBIT 2009, providing users with an impressive memory support.

As you might have figured it out for yourselves, the difference between these boards is that one is built to support AMD's latest AM3-based processors, while the other is focused on Intel's 45nm and 65nm Core 2 processors. The 790GX-8D is equipped with two PCIe X16 slots, two PCIe x1 slots and one PCI slot. Aside from the impressive memory support, this AMD board can also be used for a Hybrid CrossFireX or normal CrossFireX setup for an ultimate desktop performance.

On the other side, you get the P45-based alternative, which comes with a 6+2 SATA/RAID solution, just one PCIe x16 slot, one PCIe x1 slot and three PCI slots. Users won't get support for NVIDIA's SLI or ATI's CrossFire with this board, which makes it pale in front of the AMD-based offering.

Both boards are featured with MSI's power saving technologies APS and DrMOS, further adding to the high number of features enabled by MSI's latest mobos.