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I have a couple AMD chipset questions:

1) Does anyone know the scoop on why 790FX chipsets with SB700 southbridges are so rare? All the 790FX boards seem to have the buggy SB600 even though SB700 was supposed to become available in Q1 2008.

2) Is there such a thing as a dual-Phenom mainboard? Eight cores on the desktop would be obscene, I know, but I want it. Or would be power usage of two current Phenoms be too high?

The common mix with the SB700 is the 780G chipset right now. You can get mATX and ATX sized boards with this mix.

I don't think you're gonna find any desktop AM2+ dual-socket boards anywhere.

1: The reason is because the 790FX launched before SB700 was available. SB700 officially launched with the 780G, as I recall. Manufacturers have yet to produce new motherboards based on 790FX to paid them with the updated south bridge.

I think with Computex this week we may soon be seeing availability of boards combining 790FX or 790GX with SB700/750.

2: There isn't. Phenom is single socket and I don't think AMD's going to try another "4x4" type system, especially with the power draw of the old setup and factoring in the higher envelope of the current processors.

There are dual socket Opteron boards, though. Nothing to stop you from going there. I have to ask: what exactly would you be doing with 8 cores that couldn't be accomplished for less cash with two separate 4 core systems?

I've done alot of reading on SB700 over the weekend. In late 2007 everybody thought the SB700 would be widely available in Q1. Yet here we are at the end of Q2 with no big-name high-end SB700 boards anywhere in sight. Then, this morning, I see this info in Monday's Shortbread: AMD is claiming that some future chipset will allow Phenom Black Edition chips to overclock well beyond 3.0 ghz!!! I believe this was previously rumored on Fudzilla or somewhere like that.

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/vi ... =2569&pg=4

This leads me to ask: Are all the high-end mainboard makers skipping over the SB700 chip because they know the SB750 with it's mysterous new overclocking technology will be a big deal?
Does this explain why there are no high-end SB700 boards so late in the new year? Maybe TR can investigate further.

I have decided to wait for SB750 and also the Phenom 9950 X4 Black Edition to be released before I build my Spider gaming system. Maybe I can have 3.0 ghz after all.

deruberhanyok wrote:

I have to ask: what exactly would you be doing with 8 cores that couldn't be accomplished for less cash with two separate 4 core systems?

My desire for 8 Phenom cores in one gaming box is pure, naked-and-rubbing-itself-with-chocolate-syrup, technolust. I didn't think it would be available but I wanted to ask to be sure.

Ah, well, as long as that's the reason and you acknowledge it, that's alright then.

sparkman wrote:

This leads me to ask: Are all the high-end mainboard makers skipping over the SB700 chip because they know the SB750 with it's mysterous new overclocking technology will be a big deal?
Does this explain why there are no high-end SB700 boards so late in the new year? Maybe TR can investigate further.

I've seen various articles regarding these newer boards being able to overclock the Phenoms to even higher speeds. Some have attributed them to more optimized BIOS revisions and others to some computer voodoo that the SB750 can pull. Whatever of those is true I hope we'll have answers soon when more info starts to come out of Computex (and after the show, as more reviews start popping up on sites).

As for the lack of SB700/750 in "high-end" boards, I think it's a combination of both not wanting to spend time building new revisions of old boards and waiting on the 790GX launch / 790FX relaunch to be able to start new marketing and whatnot.