Riddle me this: Gigabyte response on AM2+ question

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Elledan

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2010
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I have a Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 rev. 1.0 AM2+ mainboard and was wondering which AM3 CPUs it supports, therefore I asked the following question:

Does this rev. 1.0 mainboard support AM3 CPUs including the Thuban X6 CPUs? The supported CPU list for this mainboard doesn't show any AM3 CPUs as being supported.

Thank you for your time.
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Their response was as follows:
Dear Maya,

Thank you for emailing GIGABYTE.
We are delighted with your interest in our products.

This mainboard sadly does not support AM3 processors, because it is a DDR2 board, and AM3 processors only work with DD3.

Our DDR3 models that support the AM3 processors (and thus also the X6 Thubans) can be recognised from the T in the model name: GA-MA770T-UD3 for example.

Kind regards

GIGABYTE-Team
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Now, I quote from the Socket AM3 page at Wikipedia:
As AM3 processors also support DDR2, they are backwards-compatible with Socket AM2/AM2+, contingent upon a BIOS update for the motherboard.
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So... is Gigabyte basically pretending this mainboard can not support AM3 while it could, if they were to bother releasing a BIOS update for it?
 
no you just got a complete effing moron to answer the question..

problem with that motherboard is that it does not have dual plane power so it can support the separated CPU/NB voltage required for the x6's.. and my guess is that its using a 1+4 phase power which isnt even enough for the phenom II x2/x3/x4's.. minimum for those is 2+3 phase power and the x6 requires a minimum of 2+4 preferably 2+6..

that board right there is about as low end as you possibly can get while still supporting the old phenom I processors..

take note that it doesnt even support the 125w phenom I 9850 and 9950 even though it supports the x2 6400+ which is 125w doesnt mean the mosfets are actually rated for a 125w quad core.. its most likely rated for 95w or lower quad cores like my biostar board was.. supported the 6400+ but couldnt run a 940 without heatsinks on the mosfets and even then with heatsinks they were only rated for 125w which i was pulling almost 175w through them 24/7..
 
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Alright, seems like I'm in for a new mainboard with the next upgrade as well :)
 
Elledan said:
Alright, seems like I'm in for a new mainboard with the next upgrade as well :)
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just stay away from MSI unless you go with the 890FX board.. seems like MSI is running the bare minimum to support the x6's but not enough to even overclock with slight voltage increase on the lower end boards..
 
My msi nf750 g55 holds the Phenom 2 965 @ 3.9 pretty nicely. Never any stability problems for me.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
just stay away from MSI unless you go with the 890FX board.. seems like MSI is running the bare minimum to support the x6's but not enough to even overclock with slight voltage increase on the lower end boards..
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agreed... that and the MSI 890GXM-G65

mine did great: Phenom II 965 BE @ 4.0GHz (around 170 watt) for a long time, and 4.4GHz (around 200 watt) for long benching session... and 4.6GHz(coming in at nearly 240watt) for a short period of time, tis is when the board began to show it's limits, the VRMs got warm and it just could not keep up...
 
sdotcarter said:
My msi nf750 g55 holds the Phenom 2 965 @ 3.9 pretty nicely. Never any stability problems for me.
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the msi boards are awesome with the x4's.. its just the x6's the vrm's cant handle.. even their brand new 880G and lower end 890GX boards cant handle an overclocked x6..
 
I have a pretty bargain basement Gigabyte board (GA-MA78LM-S2H) that takes AM3 and DDR2. Running my unlocked 555 at 3.8ghz and Muskin 4GB at 1066mhz no sweat.
 
AM2 socket mobo supports DDR2 only.
AM3 socket mobo supports DDR3 only.

AM2 CPU only works in AM2 socket.
AM3 CPU works in AM3 or AM2 socket (with reduced memory bandwidth)
 
There's a thread over in the CPU section talking about how the x6 is blowing boards. And, from what I saw MSI's were the worst ones. So, I'd go ASUS if I were you.
 
JeffBlair said:
There's a thread over in the CPU section talking about how the x6 is blowing boards. And, from what I saw MSI's were the worst ones. So, I'd go ASUS if I were you.
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Yeah, it seems that the VRMs/power phases have to be able to keep up. Sadly it seems hard to find detailed information on that part of mainboards. I haven't seen it in the manuals at least, only in reviews. A photo of the board can be used to guesstimate, but that's far from ideal.

Also, I think I'm still sticking with Gigabyte :) Although Asus seems tempting now. It's been years since I last got burned by an Asus board which caused me to stop using that brand for mainboards.
 
haadij404 said:
I have a pretty bargain basement Gigabyte board (GA-MA78LM-S2H) that takes AM3 and DDR2. Running my unlocked 555 at 3.8ghz and Muskin 4GB at 1066mhz no sweat.
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I have the same motherboard and it works with my x6... even overclocks it a bit (2.8 to 3.13ghz)...

And I have an AMD 770 motherboard (Asus M3A) that works with Phenom II/Athlon II x3's.

I'd think the Gigabyte would work with a non-x6 Phenom II/Athlon II as long as it has a newer BIOS.
 
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