Athlon x2 and Motherboard Compatibility

[deadlock]

Hi folks,

Thinking of getting an X2 4400+ and a Gigabyte N4 SLI board at the same time.

I know older 939 boards have the option of a BIOS upgrade to make the X2 chips compatible, but I will be buying a new board with the chip and I won't have the chance to upgrade if it isn't compatible out of the box.

Can anyone confirm if, in the event the board doesn't have the latest BIOS revision preinstalled, that I will still be able to use the X2 with it (even if it means single-thread performance), and then perform the upgrade later? I ask because I don't have any single-core A64 chips around.

Alternatively, are there any alternatives? Can I flash the BIOS without having a compatible CPU?

Thanks,
D

 

[natto fire]

Although I am not the authority on the subject, I would imagine that an X2 would at least POST with 1 core working, making a BIOS upgrade possible.

 

[deadlock]

Thank you.

I just did a few searches and saw a few posts alluding to this, but nobody has actually confirmed it.

Research continues...

 

[LED]

I'm installing 1 Gigabyte Non SLI GA-K8N Ultra 9 this very moment and it read the 3800x2 DC Square from the get go so i would say it's 1 safe bet as long as you get a recent Mobo and even if not...it doesn't get much easier to updat GByte MoBo's

 

[Santan]

Got MSI N4 SLI and X2 3800 - prior to bios upgrade it post as uknown processor, after bios upgrade, it posts as 3800+ x2. No problems.

Rick