Winchester or Newcastle

ronbo

My next cpu will be a AMD 3200 64 bit. I have read the forums and heard something about problems with the Winchester core CPU. I have read everything I could find here on CPU'S and have not found that thread about problems with the Winchester core . Was that and old thread, are the winchester core cpu's the better way to go now...thanks for any reply...

profdlp

I had heard the same thing when I bought my 3500+ right after Christmas. The way I got it, AMD had to recall a lot of Winchesters.

To be fair, if some were recalled and AMD is still selling the others, that would indicate that they are confident they've got the problem beat.

Another interesting thing I've read is that the main problem was that lots of Socket 939 boards were shipped with a bios that couldn't detect the Winchesters, only the Newcastles. Unless you happened to have a Newcastle core CPU handy to use temporarily you couldn't even fire the rig up to update the bios.

I would imagine that the major MB manufacturers have taken care of that by now. My personal opinion is that the Winchesters are fine, just make sure you get a board that makes it clear that it ships with a Winchester-ready bios, or that you have easy access to a Newcastle to use to flash the board. A friend with a Newcastle you could borrow (should you need to) would be nice insurance, just in case.

ronbo

Thanks for your reply, profdlp. I think the motherboard I'm getting should be ok. I am ordering the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. From what I have read here it is a very good bang for the buck MB........

profdlp

ronbo wrote:

...I am ordering the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. From what I have read here it is a very good bang for the buck MB........

That's the one I got.