The changeover from DDR4 to DDR5 RAM has been slower than DDR3. When first released, DDR5 faced massive shortages and that, coupled with the other flow on effects of a global pandemic have really slowed down uptake of this new faster memory.
For this reason, when upgrading, the question of whether to go DDR4 or DDR5 still isn’t an easy choice to make for many PC builders. It’s refreshing to see at least one motherboard maker out there are taking a why not both approach.
Onda is a company that has been on our radar in the past for making motherboards that are a bit unconventional. Often the focus is on having as many Sata ports as can possibly fit, but this time they’ve gone for dual RAM support.
According to VideoCardz, the newly announced mobo from the Chinese manufacturer is a Micro-ATX form board with two DIMM slots. It’s assumed only one slot will be active at a time, but this allows the board to work with both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM technology. It also has a PCIe 5.0, two M.2 storage slots and three SATA 3.0 ports, which is surprisingly modest for Onda.
Dubbed the H610M+, this board is based on the H610 chipset and will likely be a good cheap option for those looking to play with both types of RAM and an Alder Lake chip with integrated graphics.
Pricing is unknown for now, and it’s highly unlikely we’ll see this board, or its ilk outside of China for a while. That being said, it would be nice to see more motherboards release with this kind of swappable functionality. Whether it’s achievable on more serious gaming boards would be interesting, and having the option to swap or even hot swap between RAM would be fun to play with.