Athlon 64 Processors and Motherboard Compatibility

[mattthenewb]

I recently bought a Dell E521 with and AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Dual Core CPU on an nVidia nForce 430 Motherboard. From what I've seen, it appears that all Athlon 64 chips from AMD use the same connection specifications. That is, the various mobos Ive seen either say they're Athlon 64 compatible or not. Does this mean that any mobo that uses an Athlon 64 chip will be compatible with any other Athlon 64 chip such that I could upgrade to any type of Athlon 64 dual or even quad-core processor in the future? If so, this is a great feature over the Intel design that has certain chips compatable with only a few processor types, creating a big headache for upgrades.

 

[evongugg]

Download CPU-Z and find out what socket you have, socket 939 or socket AM2 (940). You can upgrade to the limit your motherboard supports from one processor to the next using the same socket.
A bios upgrade may allow you to use faster processors.
Intel motherboards can be upgraded also if Intel has a faster processor.

 

[mattthenewb]

CPU-Z reports "Socket AM2 (940)," which according to the folks at the CPU forum, is the latest and greatest standard and will support quad-core. Thanks.

 

[bliq]

You might need a BIOS update to support quad core. If Dell ever releases one for your motherboard.