Can one board support both DDR2 and DDR3 properly?
Today we are looking at MSI's P35 Platinum Combo - a board that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 albeit not at the same time.
You may well ask - why would someone want such a combo board? There are quite a few P35 boards out there that are dedicated to either DDR2 or DDR3 ... not to mention the old saying that "the jack of all trades is the master of none"!
The simple fact is that currently there is still a HUGE price premium for DDR3.
Major retailers sell PC2-8000 memory for as little as $70 for a 2GB kit - and some of them will happily run at 1000-4-4-4-12.
DDR3-1333 on the other had still commands a huge premium - starting at around $230.
Basically, DDR3-1333 will cost you a bit more than three times what DDR2-1000 will. That's a pretty good reason to get DDR2 if you ask me.
For this review, I decided to test the board not only at a stock 1066MHz FSB setting with DDR2-1000 and DDR3-1333, but also at whatever the best overclock I managed to achieve, again with both DDR2-1000 and DDR3-1333. I did not use DDR3-1066 as DDR2-1000 would have slaughtered it (see my previous DDR2 vs. DDR3 comparison why).
Ok, enough with box shots - here are the specs, fromt he MSI site:
CPU
• Supports Intel® Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Duo based processors in LGA775 package.
• Supports Intel® Yorkfield, Wolfdale.
• Supports FSB 1333/1066/800 MHz.
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Chipset
• Intel® P35 Chipset
- Supports FSB 800/1066/1333MHz.
• Intel® ICH9R Chipset
- Hi-Speed USB (USB2.0) controller, 480Mb/sec, up to 12 ports.
- 4 SATAII with 2 eSATA* ports with transfer rate up to 3Gb/s.
- PCI Master v2.3, I/O APIC.
- ACPI 2.0 compliant.
- Serial ATA RAID 0/1/5/10 by ICH9R.
- Integrated AHCI controller.
*eSATA function would be fully supported by VISTA ( In Box driver with AHCI driver). eSATA function would not be fully supported without AHCI driver under WinXP.
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Main Memory
• Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.8 Volt DDR2 667/800/1066 (OC) SDRAM. (Max: 8GB)
• Supports two unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 800/1066 SDRAM. (Max: 4GB)
• Supports dual channel memory architecture.
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Slots
• Two PCI Express x16 slots with 1x16 and 1x4 operations (PCI Express Bus SPEC V1.0a compliant; supports CrossFire Technology)
• Two PCI Express x1 slots. (PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant)
• Two 32-bit v2.3 master PCI bus slots.
- Support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface.
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On-Board IDE/SATA
• One Ultra DMA 66/100/133 IDE controller integrated in Marvell® 88SE6111.
- Supports PIO, Bus Master operation modes.
- Can connect up to two Ultra ATA drives.
• SATAII controller integrated in ICH9R and Marvell® 88SE6111 chipest
- Up to 300MB/sec transfer speed.
- Supports four SATAII ports by ICH9R.
- Supports AHCI controller with SATA RAID 0/1/0/5/10 by ICH9R.
- Supports one SATAII port by 88SE6111.
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Audio
• Chip integrated by Realtek® ALC888/ALC888T
- Flexible 8-channel audio with jack sensing
- Compliant with Azalia 1.0 spec.
- Supports VoIP Card. (only for ALC888T)
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LAN
• Supports PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet by Realtek 8111B.
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IEEE1394
• VIA® VT6308 chipset
- Supports up to two 1394 ports. (Rear panel x1, pinheader x1)
- Transfer rate is up to 400Mbps.
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Internal I/O Connectors
- ATX 24-Pin power connector
- ATX 4-pin VGA power connector
- ATX 8-pin 12V power connector
- CPU x 1 / System x 5 FAN connectors
- CD-in connector
- Front panel audio connector
- Front panel connector
- Clear CMOS button
- 1 x SPDIF-out pinheader
- 1 x chasis intrusion connector
- 1 x serial port pinheader
- 3 x USB 2.0 connectors
- 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
- 5 x Serial ATAII connectors
- 1 x ATA133 connector
- 1 x IEEE1394 connector support additional 1 port (optional)
- 2 x H/W OC pinheaders (optional)
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Back Panel I/O Ports
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard
- 1 x PS/2 mouse
- 2 x eSATA ports (please refer to Intel website for eSATA function)
- 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack
- 6 x USB 2.0 ports
- 1 x RJ45 LAN jack
- 1 x IEEE1394 port (optional)
- 1 x Optical SPDIF out (optional)
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BIOS
• The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which detects the peripheral devices and
expansion cards of the board automatically.
• The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface(DMI) function which records your
mainboard specifications.
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Dimension
• 30.5cm(L) x 24.5cm(W) ATX Form Factor
Mounting
• 9 mounting holes.
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