Phenom II X4 965 with Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H

[utonic]

Thank you for taking the time to read this thread and any help you can offer is greatly recieved.

I have had a motherboard gathering dust for quite some and finally decided to put it to good use. After a small amount of consideration I got a AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE to use in my Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H (rev 1.0), quite an old board I know.
I've read somewhere that with a bios update the AM2+ mobo will run an AM3 CPU and the 965 bought is the revised version using 125 watts TDP instead of 140. However, Gigabytes' web site doesn't yet have the CPU on the boards CPU suport list and I haven't come accross anyone using this CPU with this mobo.
Does anyone know if the two will work together or should I take the CPU back while it's still box fresh?

 

[sailer]

According to Gigabyte, an AM3 chip will work in the board with a BIOS update. As to the 965 BE not being listed by Gigabyte, that just means they haven't posted that model yet. That said, with both the SB700 south bridge and only DDR2 ram, you won't be able to get the most performance out of the chip.

If your budget allows, I'd get a newer mobo to take full advantage of the chip. If not, I'd take the 965 BE back while you can. But that's just my opinion. The combination you suggest should work with the BIOS update. Oh, be sure to get the update before you use the 965, otherwise it may not boot up at all.

 

[utonic]

Thanks for the advice Sailer, I was just about to crack on with it when I read your post.

Unfortunately money's a bit tight at the moment, the CPU was a birthday present and the mobo is a hand-me-down so I'm going to have to live with it until I can afford a newer motherboard. Right now my biggest computer oriented woe is the Radeon HD 4350 I'm going to choke the system up with 😀

It's a bit of a Frankenstein I know but it'll keep me happy as I've been confined to a netbook for the last few months.

Thanks again for your help.