AMD’s Forthcoming Athlon 64 May Require BIOS Update

KingFishKingFish
edited March 2005 in Science & Tech
While Advanced Micro Devices advices its mainboard partners who make platforms to support processors of today as well as future dual-core chips, at least some platforms made now may require BIOS update even for new revision of the Athlon 64 as a result of a change in thermal specifications of the chip, which causes questions about compatibility with forthcoming chips.
The Inquirer web-site last week published a number of news-stories in regards compatibility of the AMD Athlon 64 revision E0 with different mainboards shipping today, particularly those based on popular NVIDIA nForce3 and 4 chipsets. NVIDIA, who said there were no compatibility issues between its chipsets and AMD’s new processors, pointed out that “a couple” of mainboard makers did not follow AMD requirements, but were still able to tackle compatibility at least on some of their mainboards issue with BIOS update.

According to The Inquirer, mainboards from ABIT and EPoX will only be able to support AMD Athlon 64 revision E0 with a special revision of the BIOS. The web-site did not report which mainboards are affected and when and if the BIOS is released.

“It seems that a couple of motherboard partners did not design their mainboards to AMD’s thermal requirements for [AMD Athlon 64 processor] revision E. A BIOS update from EPoX and ABIT would fix the issue. It has nothing to do with nForce4 and is not apparent on the majority of boards available in the market. Thus, for the rest of the manufacturers, a BIOS update is not necessary,” a spokesman for NVIDIA Corp. told X-bit labs.
Source: X-Bit Labs

Comments

  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    I'd rather have to go with a BIOS update then a new mobo a la Intel. Still, you gotta blame Abit and Epox for this one.
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