AMD Confirms They Will Support Bulldozer on AM3

[saint19]

Yep, in an interview with AMD today they confirmed they will officially support Bulldozer architecture CPUs on socket AM3+. Hardly news you say? Perhaps.

You see, there was some brouhaha recently about ASUS announcing they were the “First to Provide AM3+ CPU Ready Solution for Current AM3 and Future AM3+ Motherboards“. They made two statements in that press release, which can be paraphased as:

1- ASUS will support Bulldozer on certain current AM3 motherboard models with just a simple BIOS upgrade.
2- ASUS will be releasing M5A series 8- and 7- series chipset boards with an AM3+ socket .

So, on some existing and some to-be-released 7- and 8- series chipset boards, ASUS will be supporting Zambezi CPUs.

Then, within days, Gigabyte jumped on the Bulldozer bandwagon. They weren’t first with an AM3+ support press release, but they say they’re the first to market with the actual AM3+ black socket. They did not mention BIOS upgrades like ASUS did, so it remains to be seen whether they will support models currently on the market.

AMD will only commit to one thing – they will support Bulldozer on AM3+ chipset boards

Here is the clarification for those that thing that is only question of a BIOS update IT'S not.

AM3 current CPUs use 938 active pins, while AM3+ will use 940 active pins. In an smart move, ASUS built some mobos (CH IV line) with the 940 active pins and not only the 938 for AM3 CPUs.

Full article

Source: overclocker.com

Enjoy it and post your comment.

 

[MadCatz900]

I seen on the asus website a bios update for the crosshair IV formula saying "Crosshair IV Formula 3012 Test BIOS
For testing AM3+ CPU Function only, do not update this BIOS while using AM3 or previous type CPUs!"

Does this mean that motherboard will support bulldozer?

 

[saint19]

Yeah, that means.

 

[geekapproved]

AM3+ is for BD, so of course it supports BD. I'm not getting it, I think you mean "AMD confirms they will support BD on AM3".

 

[Wisecracker]

AM3+ is for BD, so of course it supports BD. I'm not getting it, I think you mean "AMD confirms they will support BD on AM3".

I think AMD will 'toe-the-company-line' and not 'officially' support BD-Z on AM3.

Exactly in the same fashion they do not 'officially' support core-unlocking, over-clocking, etc.


edit: I was on my way out-the-door but wanted to add this ...


I think it would be very (very) bad Karma for AMD to 'break' BD-Z AM3 compatibility through/for utilities like AMD OverDrive. That would be quite nVidia-like

:lol:

 

[jimmysmitty]

Yep, in an interview with AMD today they confirmed they will officially support Bulldozer architecture CPUs on socket AM3+. Hardly news you say? Perhaps.

You see, there was some brouhaha recently about ASUS announcing they were the “First to Provide AM3+ CPU Ready Solution for Current AM3 and Future AM3+ Motherboards“. They made two statements in that press release, which can be paraphased as:

1- ASUS will support Bulldozer on certain current AM3 motherboard models with just a simple BIOS upgrade.
2- ASUS will be releasing M5A series 8- and 7- series chipset boards with an AM3+ socket .

So, on some existing and some to-be-released 7- and 8- series chipset boards, ASUS will be supporting Zambezi CPUs.

Then, within days, Gigabyte jumped on the Bulldozer bandwagon. They weren’t first with an AM3+ support press release, but they say they’re the first to market with the actual AM3+ black socket. They did not mention BIOS upgrades like ASUS did, so it remains to be seen whether they will support models currently on the market.

AMD will only commit to one thing – they will support Bulldozer on AM3+ chipset boards

Here is the clarification for those that thing that is only question of a BIOS update IT'S not.

AM3 current CPUs use 938 active pins, while AM3+ will use 940 active pins. In an smart move, ASUS built some mobos (CH IV line) with the 940 active pins and not only the 938 for AM3 CPUs.

Full article

Source: overclocker.com

Enjoy it and post your comment.

So in essence, Asus pre-released the AM3+ socket if thats all it really was.

Smart move Asus.

I do wonder though how performance will be affected.

 

[dogman_1234]

So in essence, Asus pre-released the AM3+ socket if thats all it really was.

Smart move Asus.

I do wonder though how performance will be affected.

Possibly not much, considering the AM3 socket is only for the PII chips. I also do not understand how the BIOS and NB/SB chipset will even support the BD chip at all? Considering AM3.

 

[saint19]

^That's a good question, we have wait to see how AMD do that.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Well most AMD CPUS while supporting a newer HTT, still support older HTT links and thats where the NB/SB will be supported.

But still the whole reasoning as to why AMD was putting BD on its own socket and not supporting older ones originally was to push the full potential of BD out.

SO while the older AM3 mobos Asus is making will support it, it makes me think that since it wont have all the features (on the 700/800 series chipsets) and therefore will not give the max performance. It might have a hit of 10-15%, maybe more or maybe less.

We will have to wait and see.

 

[dogman_1234]

This sucks. We wait and wait. Intel launches early while AMD...well, remains AMD. You get the point.

 

[bobdozer]

Launch early pay $1bn recall fee or wait.

You get the point.

 

[bobdozer]

Actually their stocks plummet for a couple of hours where it mysteriously recovered from someone buying it up... You get the point

Oh get real.

 

[dogman_1234]

..and thus far, no Bulldozer.

 

[megamanx00]

Delaying Bulldozer is hurting AMD, that's all there is to it. For whatever reason they missed the opportunity to launch while Intel was scrambling over Sandy Bridge. Rumor was that they didn't demo at CeBit because they had some issues with the new 900 chipset. They could have used current 800 series chipsets which may have slightly reduced performance, and you could argue that it's better to launch Bulldozer at 100% rather than 90%, but the phenom II isn't exactly holding it's it's own right now .

 

[joytech22]

Soo.. we have 1 motherboard that's already widely used which is confirmed to be under testing for AM3+.

I just wish they'd bring out benchmarks, OEM's have the damn hardware for testing why the hell don't one of the thousands of those people release a damn benchmark already?

I couldn't wait for BD so I got my 2600, a bad choice to buy so close to the supposed BD release date but I just needed the extra power for my rendering.

 

[Wisecracker]

After that 1bn announcement of the recalls they made a announcement they set a 10bn aside to buy more of they're stocks back. Is that real enough?

Stock re-purchase is generally done for one of two reasons:

1) Keep the price/share up, with the intent of raising return on assets & equity to maintain shareholder value; or
2) To take the company private.

Not sure what your point is, and I suspect the reason Intel initiated the re-purchase was number (1) -- because they didn't want investors dumping their stock.

And I hope this is the 'last word' on this juvie crap because this is the typical incessant blather (from the usual suspects) which drags every decent BD-Z thread into being locked.


The 9xx series chipsets will not bring some 'magic bullet' to BD-Z which increases performance over the 8xx series. What I suspect you will find is 'more elegant' power-gating, Turbo and electrical management for power savings.

I also suspect those features will be of greater benefit to the x6 Thubans.

 

[phatbuddha79]

With the rate AMD is going, I may start going with Intel. They need to release something fast and all this waiting will give away a lot of business to Intel and I can't blame people for jumping ship.

 

[dogman_1234]

I don't really care if BD is released in June. more time to collect some dough for a build.

 

[xAlphaMalex]

IF YOUR BOARD DOESNT HAVE A BLACK SOCKET IT WONT WORK. There will be new revisions of older boards released like MSI 890FX-GD70/65 that will have the black socket and when bulldozer is released a bios update will be made available(FOR THE BLACK SOCKET BOARDS ALREADY FLOATING AROUND)

These boards are already releasing and newegg has two ASROCK boards (WITH BLACK SOCKETS) that (HAS THE EXTRA PIN NEEDED).

What they meant by current hardware supported is hardware at the time of release.

So IT WONT WORK ON CURRENT WHITE AM3 SOCKETS ONLY AM3+ SOCKETS FITTED TO EXISTING BOARDS THAT WILL HAVE A NEW BOARD REVISION ID = Ex. V2.0 current...V3.0 Compatible

Any Questions now that thats cleared up?

 

[Wisecracker]

IF YOUR BOARD DOESNT HAVE A BLACK SOCKET IT WONT WORK. There will be new revisions of older boards released like MSI 890FX-GD70/65 that will have the black socket and when bulldozer is released a bios update will be made available(FOR THE BLACK SOCKET BOARDS ALREADY FLOATING AROUND)

These boards are already releasing and newegg has two ASROCK boards (WITH BLACK SOCKETS) that (HAS THE EXTRA PIN NEEDED).

What they meant by current hardware supported is hardware at the time of release.

So IT WONT WORK ON CURRENT WHITE AM3 SOCKETS ONLY AM3+ SOCKETS FITTED TO EXISTING BOARDS THAT WILL HAVE A NEW BOARD REVISION ID = Ex. V2.0 current...V3.0 Compatible

Any Questions now that thats cleared up?

uhhhhhh ....

ASUS First to Provide AM3+ CPU Ready Solution for Current AM3 and Future AM3+ Motherboards

Is that clear enough for you?





:lol:

 

[jimmysmitty]

Launch early pay $1bn recall fee or wait.

You get the point.

Not really. AMD delayed the crap out of K10. I am pretty sure their losses from the past few years make up to be well more than $1BN.

 

[kilo_17]

I wish JF could clear some of this up for us

 

[saint19]

This topic has been closed by Saint19