Bulldozer will physically fit in a normal (white) AM3 socket

[Derbixrace]

well they have been reliable before with the early sandy benches atleast.

 

[pelov]

What the?not sure about the source but it has some form of reliability.Hope its real.

The pic of the actual CPU doesn't matter much, when now 3 (recently asrock is selling am3 mobos as am3+ mobos as well) are selling am3 mobos as am3+ compatible. So I think it's safe to assume that msi, asus and now asrock aren't wrong on that front.

It is worrying, though, to hear AMD saying one thing and now these manufacturers saying another. I'd be willing to bet there may be some drawbacks to dropping in a bulldozer into an 800 series am3 mobo. Either that or AMD has backtracked and hasn't told anyone but the manufacturers 😛

 

[jimmysmitty]

The pic of the actual CPU doesn't matter much, when now 3 (recently asrock is selling am3 mobos as am3+ mobos as well) are selling am3 mobos as am3+ compatible. So I think it's safe to assume that msi, asus and now asrock aren't wrong on that front.

It is worrying, though, to hear AMD saying one thing and now these manufacturers saying another. I'd be willing to bet there may be some drawbacks to dropping in a bulldozer into an 800 series am3 mobo. Either that or AMD has backtracked and hasn't told anyone but the manufacturers 😛

As I said, they are activating pins. AM3 is 941 pins with 938 active (for AM3 CPUs) while AM3+ is supposed to be 942 pins with 941 active (for BD). The layout HAS to be the same for a AM3+ CPU to support a AM3 CPU. Therefore Asus and the others activating the extra 3 pins will allow BD to run in it.

As for the chipsets supporting BD is a different story. They may work but there may be a down side as well. There could be performance losses since those chipsets wont support the full array of featres BD has. It could not utilise their modul approach properly or a slew of many things.

The only thing we can truly do is wait and see when BD gets tested IF those mobos truly run and support BD with or without a performance loss. If its small it might be worth it. If its too much it wont be.