How long do motherboard chipsets remain in production?

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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One reason I asking is because Gigabyte is still making a 760G chipset board ( GA-78LMT-USB3 ) which appears to have very late revisions. In fact, both revisions 5.0 and 6.0 include include support for 95W AM3+ octocores (FX-8320E/FX-8370E) released September 2014 on the first BIOS.

20141215150310_big.jpg


P.S. The 760G chipset was announced back in January 2009.
 

el etro

Golden Member
Jul 21, 2013
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Bad thing this.

Problem is AMD is still making the FX processors that fir on this motherboard. Nothing to do here. High-end upgrade will only come with Zen. Until there, we will still see these Mobos selling...
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
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They are in production as long as it makes sense. But you still see the boards long after production is stopped due to low demand and inventory.
 

waltchan

Senior member
Feb 27, 2015
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One reason I asking is because Gigabyte is still making a 760G chipset board ( GA-78LMT-USB3 ) which appears to have very late revisions. In fact, both revisions 5.0 and 6.0 include include support for 95W AM3+ octocores (FX-8320E/FX-8370E) released September 2014 on the first BIOS.

20141215150310_big.jpg


P.S. The 760G chipset was announced back in January 2009.
The Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 is currently Gigabyte's #1 best-selling AMD motherboard for over 5 years now, so they continue to invest in it with new revisions (now 6.0, released on November 2014 as a 2015 model), which is incredible I think. Changes for 2015 model include new audio filter capacitors at lower-left, new AHCI SATA II chipset borrowed from FM2 A58, new BIOS boot software, and future CPU support ready for upcoming FX-4330 and FX-6330 refresh.
 
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waltchan

Senior member
Feb 27, 2015
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And you've verified this how? Booting to Linux and cat'ing /proc/pci, and comparing the PCI IDs of the chipset and SATA controllers?
It's A58 like and something similar, but I don't know what model it is. When I did the Catalyst installation, the Rev 6.0 takes the newer AHCI driver software borrowed from FM2 A58. The previous Rev 5.0 and older used the old 2011 AHCI chipset, and the old Catalyst driver software.

But for sure, the AHCI chipset between Rev 5.0 and Rev 6.0 is not the same at all. Maybe faster transfer speed, who knows?
 
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escrow4

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2013
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The Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 is currently . . . . a tired old rubbish board from 2009. Gigabyte must be laughing all the way to the bank after buying up all the 760G chipsets for 10c or less. Keep on bolting modern features but the core is still primitive.
 

dark zero

Platinum Member
Jun 2, 2015
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It depends on the popularity...
AM3 or LGA 775 are still in production since there are still tons of chips AND DDR3 is still alive.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
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AM3 or LGA 775 are still in production

Maybe niche mobos, made with stockpiled leftover chipsets. But they're not making the CPUs anymore.

PS. I would have probably purchased one of those ASRock S939 785G mobos, if they had sold them in the USofA.
 

nenforcer

Golden Member
Aug 26, 2008
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What's even scarier is the manufacturing node and the amount of power consumptions these older chipsets use.

I bet this is either a .90nm or possibly .65nm chipset using well over 20W. Anyone care to venture a guess?
 

waltchan

Senior member
Feb 27, 2015
846
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The Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 is currently . . . . a tired old rubbish board from 2009. Gigabyte must be laughing all the way to the bank after buying up all the 760G chipsets for 10c or less. Keep on bolting modern features but the core is still primitive.
Demand is still pretty good at this moment (Micro Center can't always keep them on shelves), and we may see REV 7.0 for 2016 or 2017 if we're lucky. :rolleyes: This board expects to have a 11-year production run until 2020 estimated, I would say, when most of AM3 processors will be reaching $3 shipped and Windows 7 support ends at the same year. 15-year production run is certainly possible if demand for $20 used 8-core FX processors remains sky-high.

Learn to love this board. It's Gigabyte's most-famous board, and you'll always find a replacement if it stops working.
 
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cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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On that LGA 775 ASRock G41C-GS (listed at Newegg) I noticed the user manual v 1.2 is dated December 2013:

ftp://66.226.78.21/manual/G41C-GS.pdf

And the first review for the board on Newegg was Feburary 2013.

( Intel Ark lists G41 released Q3 2008 ---> http://ark.intel.com/products/36528/Intel-82G41-Graphics-and-Memory-Controller-Hub )

So this is another example of a very late motherboard manufacture using old chips.

ASRock now has a Revision 2 of that above motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...tm_medium=affiliates&utm_source=afc-Skimlinks

(First Newegg review is September 2015)
 
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Magic Carpet

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2011
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They are in production as long as it makes sense. But you still see the boards long after production is stopped due to low demand and inventory.
Yeah, looks like 775 has outlived 1156... I can barely find new 1156 boards (not even listed on NE).
 

Azuma Hazuki

Golden Member
Jun 18, 2012
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That GA78 is a nice little board :) I've been doing surprisingly capable budget builds for customers who can make use of heavy multithreading with those and the FX-8320, and investing the savings over an i5 or i7 into larger SSDs, more RAM, or better dGPU (these are almost always video-editing corner cases, these customers).

Vishera really is doing better than we'd expect for such an old and disadvantaged architecture. I think it's having a nice, graceful "retirement," at least in the hands of people capable of knowing where and how it should be used.
 

superstition

Platinum Member
Feb 2, 2008
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Vishera really is doing better than we'd expect for such an old and disadvantaged architecture. I think it's having a nice, graceful "retirement," at least in the hands of people capable of knowing where and how it should be used.
Fabrication improvements for AMD's 32nm SOI have led to reduced voltage requirements, reportedly, so the E chips in particular can be run more readily on such low-end boards.*

I bet when 28nm GPUs came out no one expected they'd get as good as they are today. It's unfortunate AMD didn't have enough cash to improve the FX cores (replace Vishera).

*However, Gigabyte likes to employ stealth throttling, regardless of temps, if my UD3P 2.0 is any indication, to keep boards from being fried by unskilled builders. I have a 480 and 360 radiator combo with just an 8370E and the board throttles beyond 4.4 - 4.5 GHz, in Linpack.