AM3 motherboards support Bulldozer with BIOS update

[Skurge]

http://translate.googleusercontent....&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhiz5uZqXasZvDcCuOAtGViY2ZZ_Pg

If you can make sense of that article. It looks like Some current AM3 8series boards will support AM3+ CPUs with a BIOS update.

 

[Vincent]

Too bad all my AM3 boards are 785G-based.

 

[Tanclearas]

Just found this:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=890FX%20Deluxe5

Zoom in near the socket. Says AM3+, but more importantly, it indeed looks like it is 942 pins.

Edit: Yes, I know there have been drawings of this model before, but not sure when it appeared in AsRock's AM3 product page.

 

[busydude]

Zoom in near the socket. Says AM3+, but more importantly, it indeed looks like it is 942 pins.

Yup.. although I wonder, what features do users have to sacrifice if they just drop BD into AM3 based boards?

 

[Skurge]

Yup.. although I wonder, what features do users have to sacrifice if they just drop BD into AM3 based boards?

Could be something like power gating I would imagine.

 

[dorion]

Could be something like power gating I would imagine.

Arstechnica suggests that there will be lots of power gating

 

[Vette73]

Unless something changed or board makers have been making AM3+ boards; AM3+ is a hardware issue, not software/bios.

Thats what AMD has been saying.

 

[Rifter]

So you just cut the extra pin off? i cant see that not voiding your warranty. AM3+ has one more pin than AM3 so this has to be BS.

 

[Tanclearas]

The information that I have repeatedly seen says:

1) the 800-series chipsets support AM3+ (have seen that 990FX may simply be rebadged 890FX).
2) AM3+ processors have 942 pins and will not physically fit in AM3 sockets.

This means that AM3+ processors will NOT work in existing AM3 motherboards. Updated pin-outs on new boards could be supported with updated BIOS combined with the 800-series chipsets, but you can't magically create pin-outs that don't exist on current motherboards.

 

[Skurge]

The information that I have repeatedly seen says:

1) the 800-series chipsets support AM3+ (have seen that 990FX may simply be rebadged 890FX).
2) AM3+ processors have 942 pins and will not physically fit in AM3 sockets.

This means that AM3+ processors will NOT work in existing AM3 motherboards. Updated pin-outs on new boards could be supported with updated BIOS combined with the 800-series chipsets, but you can't magically create pin-outs that don't exist on current motherboards.

Im guessing these motherboards with AM3+ branding have the correct pin-outs.