Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, morphine
ronch wrote:Hi gerbils. I've been thinking about why Bulldozer-based processors won't work in older sockets for Stars cores-based Phenom II and Opteron products. It's a known fact that FX chips won't run on your AM3 boards, and many FM1 adopters were sent home disappointed when they found out Trinity chips won't work on FM1 boards. I read somewhere that the power delivery requirements of BD are so different from Stars to the point of not allowing BD to work with boards for those CPUs (Stars). But whatever the reason, I've realized that this is not applicable to servers. There, AMD was able to make 6200-series Opterons (BD based) work in older systems that supported Stars. Is it because AMD's partners were told how to include forward compatibility in those systems for BD-based CPUs? Which begs the question: why didn't AMD do the same thing with desktop platforms as well? Those Opteron 61xx systems probably shipped during the same time frame as FM1 boards, so AMD probably knew well enough that FM1 owners will want forward compatibility (not to mention AM3 owners), and if you say it may have had something to do with cost, consider this: AM3+ board support for BD and Stars doesn't really make it expensive. Any thoughts? If BD supported AM3, I would've sprung for it already.
ronch wrote:Yeats : Yes, I do understand that *some* AM3 motherboards do support FX, but the fact that most AM3 boards don't, means FX is not officially supported on AM3. It's strange. It's like AMD got sloppy on the socket. I know this is old news, but the question arises in light of Trinity's launch, and with folks who bought FM1 boards now more than ever feel being left out in the cold.
ronch wrote:Yeats : Yes, I do understand that *some* AM3 motherboards do support FX, but the fact that most AM3 boards don't, means FX is not officially supported on AM3. It's strange. It's like AMD got sloppy on the socket. I know this is old news, but the question arises in light of Trinity's launch, and with folks who bought FM1 boards now more than ever feel being left out in the cold.
DPete27 wrote:On a related topic. How does PCIe 3.0 support from AMD fit into all this? Can they add PCIe 3.0 to AM3+ without moving to a new socket? My guess is no.
Yeats wrote:And yeah, the FM1 folks are totally screwed. Shame on AMD!
flip-mode wrote:How did we get screwed? I put an A8-3850 on an F1A75-M Pro last August. It's still working just fine. I replaced it with a Core i5-3570K on a P8Z77-M Pro in May and handed down the Socket-FM1 package to a family member whose NForce4 ultra socket-939 motherboard had finally given up. When I buy another processor, I'll get another new motherboard, too. No biggee.Yeats wrote:The FM1 folks are totally screwed. Shame on AMD!