Socket AM3 has been around for quite a while now but AMD’s soon-to-be-released Bulldozer family of CPUs will require a new socket, dubbed AM3+. At least, this is what we were led to believe until recently. A couple weeks ago rumors surfaced that certain AM3 boards were able to handle the new Bulldozer CPUs (which exist at least as engineering samples) while still using current 800-series chipsets. Then announcements came from Asus and Gigabyte that special certain socket AM3 motherboards would be compatible with Bulldozer. Considering that Friday was littered with fake news and product announcements, this seemed like just another joke in the pile. Turns out it wasn’t.
ASUS and Gigabyte announced via press release that quantities (17 for ASUS, 16 for Gigabyte) of socket AM3 motherboards will support Bulldozer. These boards are all based on current designs using AMD’s 700- and 800-series chipsets. Some of ASUS’s boards only require a BIOS update, while other new boards will be released. All of Gigabyte’s compatible boards are listed as revision 3.1 and some will be available very soon.
The big question is why this is being done at all. Here are four facts and one almost-for-certain statement we have to work from:
- Bulldozer isn’t here yet
- True socket AM3+ motherboards aren’t here yet
- Bulldozer and true socket AM3+ motherboards will launch at the same time
- AMD only officially supports AM3+ CPUs on an AM3+ motherboard
- A new motherboard is required for AM3+ compatibility on a socket AM3 system with few exceptions
Bulldozer isn’t even available at retail yet. Current projections point to sometime mid-year, possibly as early as June. Logic would dictate that when the new CPU is released, the motherboards will be released simultaneously. AMD has stated that socket AM3+ motherboards will be compatible with AM3 CPUs, but the other way around is not supported.
Whether current socket AM3 motherboards from other manufacturers will work is still uncertain. Gigabyte’s web site only lists compatibility for revision 3.1 motherboards (all have black sockets), meaning all new boards for them. ASUS has claimed support for certain current models only requiring a BIOS update, with several new models coming soon. The most likely scenario here is that AM3+ sockets have been placed on these motherboards.
The biggest drawback here is similar to putting a Phenom II in a socket AM2+ board. Doing so prevented the use of certain features (in this case, DDR3 was the big one). This time, though, the “lost” feature list may be much larger. Things such as dynamic vCore, power gating and the new version of TurboCORE, new features with Bulldozer, probably aren’t going to work at all.
If you want to upgrade from AM3 to Bulldozer but don’t have the cash to get both parts at the same time, just wait for the official parts to be released and get a real Socket AM3+ motherboard first. It’s officially supported, will work with a socket AM3 processor, and will probably be much less of a hassle to deal with in the long run.
The bottom line here is that these recent “Bulldozer in AM3” announcements seem more like a solution looking for a problem than anything else.
Articles RSS