CeBIT : DDR2 and DDR3 for the X48 Posted on 04/03/2008 at 23:39 by Marc
Even if Intel only specifies DDR3 support for its X48 chipset, a new revision of the X38 officially supporting FSB1600 and DDR3-1600 (two settings that function well in practice on the X38), manufacturers are releasing DDR2 motherboards or even combined DDR2/DDR3 models.
Gigabyte chose to offer two distinct versions: the GA-X48T-DQ6 is DDR3 while the GA-X48-DQ6 is DDR2. In practice, Gigabyte goes further than official specifications by announcing respective support of DDR3-1900 and DDR2-1200.
MSI also presents two motherboards, the X48C Platinum, a DDR2/3 combo, and the X48 Platinum, a DDR3 version. The latter additionally integrates an IDT chip, called a « PCIe Expander » by MSI, and which allows having 2 PCI-E x16 ports (cabled in x4 for data as the IDT chip is relayed to the southbridge in x4) in addition to two ports managed by the northbridge.
ASUS follows the trend and also offers two cards: the Rampage Formula in DDR2 (up to DDR2-1200) and the P5E3 Premium in DDR3 (up to DDR3-2000).
