ASUS AM2+ Motherboards - bios flash will turn existing AM2 into AM2+

[Qianglong]

http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=8305
"ASUS gives the world the first motherboard, the M2A-VM, which is compatible with the latest AMD AM2+ "


Does it mean that the existing AM2 motherboards will be turned into AM2+ with the bios flashing - with HT 3.0 and separate power lane for the Phenom processors?

[Brazos]

Sounds that way to me. The news article I saw listed quite a few boards that were Bios upgradeable. It's funny that this hasn't been mentioned before. I always assumed a new mb.

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Qianglong
Does it mean that the existing AM2 motherboards will be turned into AM2+ with the bios flashing - with HT 3.0 and separate power lane for the Phenom processors?

No, it means that existing AM2 motherboards can run AM2+ processors but will be limited to HT2.0 and a single power plane. Only AM2+ motherboards will support HT3.0 and separate power planes.

[Zap]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
No, it means that existing AM2 motherboards can run AM2+ processors but will be limited ...

Verified. I was at ShowdownLAN 2007 in Indianapolis this past weekend and AMD had some reps there talking to people, and they mentioned AM2 boards running AM2+ chips.

[Brazos]

Does anyone know when the AM2+ boards will be coming out? I guess not until they have cpu's they can test wtih.

[neothe0ne]

Newegg lists a Biostar AM2+ board already.

[Pyrokinetic]

Originally posted by: neothe0ne
Newegg lists a Biostar AM2+ board already.

That is only the name of the board, it is not a true AM2+ socket. Anandtech posted a review of the board: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3051

I really do not care about split power planes, that will mostly be a power savings feature to servers; and I can live with HT 2.0. I would however, like a processor that could overclock like the current Intel chips. My 35% overclock of my 3800+ is decent, but we will have to see what the Phenom series of chips can do.