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Yep, in an interview with AMD today they confirmed they will officially support Bulldozer architecture CPUs on socket AM3+. Hardly news you say? Perhaps.
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Yep, in an interview with AMD today they confirmed they will officially support Bulldozer architecture CPUs on socket AM3+. Hardly news you say? Perhaps.
Vendors use OEMs for sockets, typically Foxconn (see photo here, look in the upper left of the socket). Unless ASUS had Foxconn specifically make an AM3 socket only for them, knowing AM3+ was coming, and what pins they needed where, I doubt that is the case. It's not fiscally smart to have a standardized socket customized for one company's use - it would be prohibitively expensive, especially for such a small order as only the top teir motherboards by one manufacturer.
He also didn't qualify that statement - AM3+ CPUs will physically fit in an AM3 socket. Period, without qualification. I don't think he would have said yes to that if it were actually that 'they'll only fit in non-standard AM3 sockets only on a few ASUS boards that they had custom made.'
It IS always good to hear it from the horse!
After the mess with AM2/AM2+ I don't blame AMD at all for not saying anything about BD fitting an AM3 board. Many people were more than a little aggravated at AMD because AM2+ CPUs wouldn't work in (especially) older AM2 boards when, in fact, it was the board manufacturers that were to blame because they didn't want to update the BIOS on an old board or had side-stepped an AM2 spec or two so it couldn't support AM2+. As happened with AM2 to AM2+ it wouldn't surprise me if some AM3 boards will be able to handle BD but I can certainly see AMD not wanting to say it since it's outside their control.
It IS always good to hear it from the horse!
After the mess with AM2/AM2+ I don't blame AMD at all for not saying anything about BD fitting an AM3 board. Many people were more than a little aggravated at AMD because AM2+ CPUs wouldn't work in (especially) older AM2 boards when, in fact, it was the board manufacturers that were to blame because they didn't want to update the BIOS on an old board or had side-stepped an AM2 spec or two so it couldn't support AM2+. As happened with AM2 to AM2+ it wouldn't surprise me if some AM3 boards will be able to handle BD but I can certainly see AMD not wanting to say it since it's outside their control.
He said, unequivocally that AM3+ CPUs will physically fit in the AM3 socket.
According to wiki, while the AM3 socket has 941 contacts, the AM3 CPUs only have 938 pins. Wouldn't be a stretch for AM3+ CPUs to have 940 or less.
I'm still trying to figure out what they're using any extra pins for at all. I can't imagine HT Link using more than the 40 lanes it already has and unless they move to triple or quad channel memory there shouldn't be any changes there. Guess we'll know in a month or so.
Where did you hear that? They're working on Piledriver but I haven't heard any peeps on new revisions of Bulldozer CPUs.