Would you ever try a CPU not on your board's compatibility list?

[mikeymikec]

And when I say "not on your board's compatibility list", I don't mean that it's on it and listed "not compatible", just that it isn't on the list.

I'm just curious really, I don't have any need for it at present. I have an ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 (which is an AM3 board which is officially compatible with Bulldozer CPUs), and I'm wondering whether I would possibly take the chance of buying a Vishera/Piledriver CPU in it, assuming that I saw one at a good price (like when it reaches the end of its production).

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If they're the same voltages, it can't hurt.

But if there's been no BIOS release for the board since PD release, I wouldn't expect it to work.

Since BIOS 3029 for that board came out in July, I'd, you know, hold off a bit.

There's also a possibility you could email support and see if they have a beta bios that's not in general release yet. Dunno how realistic that is, but I've heard stories.

 

[Zap]

I've done it before. For instance, when the Core 2 Duo E8400 first came out, vendors were price gouging and still the CPUs were getting sold out. I picked up a Xeon E3110 (essentially the same thing) for cheaper. I've used it in several boards and I don't think any of them have officially supported it, yet all have worked (they all supported E8400).

Used to be more common BITD, where if the voltages were supported then it worked. Heck, I used to put mobile P4 and Celerons into desktop motherboards using pin mods.

However, I have a socket 1366 board (ASRock Supercomputer) that has the original shipping BIOS which won't work with anything but the original stepping Core i7 chips.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

There could be more than one reason why a CPU is not on a mobo compatibility list. But I would be interested in one and only one reason: The staff working to update the list or do the testing for a board manufacturer are either behind in their work, or assume that late-coming processor releases will either work or fail depending on the basis of their design.

The one time this issue ever arose for me involved a Gigabyte mATX LGA-775 motherboard released during or before 2007 and a Wolfdale (Intel) processor released in March 2010 (Yeah! No kidding!) The Wolfdale was the E6700 -- model name chosen to eclipse an earlier Conroe E6700 processor.

The mobo-maker had listed several Wolfdales to include the mainstream E8X00 processors designated as "C2D" and lesser units like the E5X00 (etc) designated as "Wolfdale," dual-core and "Pentium." But no mention of these "new" E6X00 units.

I updated the BIOS, popped in the processor and it worked 100%, tip-top, A-OK fine -- and recognized by BIOS and software.

But that's a fairly shallow example compared to Zap's story about the Xeon.