Need help with CPU for EVGA 730a please.

[forerunner]

I have an EVGA 730a mobo, and it has a horribly old amd 5800+ dual core in it.

Other than my GTS 250 GPU which probably needs to be upgraded as well, this cpu needs to go.

Ive been searching all over for what cpu would be the best to use, and i even called evga and they just told me that it HAS to be am2+ and 95w... the rest doesnt matter. Only thing i can find online that fits that criteria is an amd 3core 2.2 or something for 50 bucks.

Is there perhaps a 6 core that would work for this board?..

I want to try and play games like Battlefield 3, instead of playing it on the Ps3... but im just trying to upgrade this machine i have now before going out and buying a WHOLE new system you know? figure its worth a hundred or two to upgrade the CPU and maybe GPU to be able to at leat play, even if not on insane max settings.

Thanks

 

[C12Friedman]

That motherboard is said to support Phenom II x6 processors (with a bios update).

 

[forerunner]

Evga claims that the board is not compatible with am3, something about the bios update not existing, idk ive called EVGA support and they tell me they wont work. I hear they just show up as an unidentified CPU, which idk could cause problems.

They say its "unofficially tested"

 

[C12Friedman]

That is a strange mobo, at least from the threads I've read - I'm going to link you to this thread on the EVGA forum which says it is a "hit or miss" proposition.
http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=913683&mpage=1&print=true
There are quite a few threads out there claiming success using Phenom II's on that mobo, I guess it's a gamble.

 

[forerunner]

Yeah i found the same thread before. And thats what it sounds like EVGa is saying as well, that its really a crap shot. ive seen people saying that you can throw an am3 socket in there, and it will work but the machine wont be able to read it and whatever, it will just say, "unrecognized quad core processor 3.4 etc etc"