Bargain workstations available: MSI introduced a 8DIMM motherboard for Core 2 Quad/Dual systems

MSI launches "P45-8D Memory Lover" motherboard: the world's first motherboard equipped with 8 memory slots. Intel P45 chipsets support DDR2 memories up to 16GB and MSI is the first to make 16GB possible. It is already available on market for around $160 dollars. This provides the cheapest option for workstations. Reason: Core 2 Quad CPUs are cheaper than Xeons; unbuffered non-ECC memories are cheaper than registered ECC memories for servers.

Estimate the cost for a workstation with 16GB memory:
1) get this motherboard for $160
2) CPU, recommand the 1333MHZ core 2 Quad Q9550 ($300) or Q9650($500). 1666Mhz is still very expensive right now.
3) P-45 only supports DDR2 to 16GB while 8GB max for DDR3. Currently, DDR2-1066 only has 1GB/DIMM avaiable. We have to pick DDR2-800 8x2GB: around $300.
4) hard drive: depends, let bugget $150 for a 1TB SATAII drive.
5) a cheap graphic card and computer case around $100.

The total cost is around $1000. Wowwwww

Something to correct: the 8 DIMM slots are actually 4 for DDR2 (up to 16GB) and another 4 for DDR3 (up to 8GB). There are limited types of 4GB/DIMM non-Ecc unbuffered memory available: for instance OCZ 4x4GB PC2-6400 DDR2800, CL 5-6-6-18, for $350.  But I expect more manufacturers will come into this line.  This 4GB chip was useless because Intel chipsets only support up to 8GB mem while nVidia's chipsets (claiming to support up to 16GB) are not popular relatively . But since the introduction of P45 chipset generations, 4GB chips are born!