MSI is showing high-end motherboards using Intel's X48 chipset.

The X48 Platinum board sports 4 PCIe slots with a mechanical x16 coding, although only two of them actually provide PCIe 2.0 x16, while the other two only run at x4. DDR3 memory is supported up to a frequency of DDR3-1600. Should the board ever have trouble booting, a "troubleshooting poster" provides an explanation in the form of a code. MSI's Circu-Pipe heatpipe solution cools the northbridge, the southbridge and the voltage regulation modules. The VRMs themselves use a "Dual-Channel-Design" that is meant to improve efficiency. The board features 6 S-ATA ports, with the I/O shield adding another 2 eSATA connectors and 8 USB ports.

MSI X48 Platinum with DDR3-1600 support

The X48C Platinum, on the other hand, provides support for DDR2-800 (2 slots) and DDR3-1600 (4 slots). It sports two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots for ATI's Crossfire. There are four S-ATA ports on the board plus two eSATA connectors. The X48C Platinum also features MSI's Circu-Pipe heatpipe solution

(Compare Prices on MSI Motherboards)

The MSI X48C Platinum supports both DDR2 and DDR3 memory

MSI at CeBIT 2008: Hall 21/stand A40

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