MSI adds HUDIMM DDR5 memory support to its 600, 700 and 800 series Intel motherboards

MSI joins GIGABYTE, ASUS, and ASRock as the fourth manufacturer to add HUDIMM support to its DDR5 Intel motherboard lineup. MSI announced in a blog post that it has rolled out motherboard updates for its entire Intel 600, 700, and 800 series motherboard lineups, adding support for the budget-friendly memory form factor. If you own a compatible board, you can go to the product page for your MSI motherboard to download the appropriate BIOS update.

HUDIMM is a new memory form factor that was made in collaboration with ASRock, Intel and TeamGroup to counter the skyrocketing prices of DRAM thanks to the AI boom. These budget-focused modules are cut-down versions of traditional DDR5 DIMMs, featuring just a single sub-channel, cutting memory bandwidth in half compared to regular DDR5 DIMMs. This bandwidth reduction is so significant that DDR4 memory can outperform HUDIMM DDR5 - depending on memory speed. Despite this, synthetic testing has shown that gaming performance could be largely unaffected by HUDIMM's bandwidth-limiting single-channel configuration, especially when two memory sticks are present and running in a dual-channel configuration.

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Motherboards supporting HUDIMM memory can mix and match the modules with traditional DDR5 DIMMs. This is beneficial in specific cases where buying mixed DDR5 memory setups consisting of HUDIMMs and traditional DIMMs is a more cost-effective and/or performant solution compared to buying just DDR5 DIMMs. For example, pairing a single 16GB DIMM with an 8GB HUDIMM will yield better performance than buying a single 24GB DIMM. Mixing and matching is also highly beneficial for existing setups where users want to upgrade their DDR5 setups with HUDIMM memory.

Currently, there is no official release date for any upcoming HUDIMM products, and there is no word on when AMD AM5 motherboards will get HUDIMM support, making support exclusive to Intel DDR5 motherboards.