AM3 Socket Future Proofing?

So the AMD X3 720 is the most future proof correct?
Paired with a DDR3 motherboard, you should be able to use all future AMD CPUS (6/8 core) since it is AM3 will be around for awhile or will there be a new socket like AM3+ or something else that will break backwards compatibility with their future 6 or 8 core cpus?

Also, does AM3 socket support DDR3 1600 or just 1333?

there may be a am3+ eventually but its not going to change the socket.. only difference would be the HT.. i think the bulldozer is suppose to use HT 3.1 or 4.0 something like that.. so it would still work on the am3 board just like am2+ cpu's worked on the am2 motherboards..

currently the phenom II technically only supports ddr3 1333.. but almost all the motherboards can overclock the memory to 1600mhz..

You'll never know until a new socket is released. A bunch of new CPUs might end up being backwards compatible with it for a long time (though at reduced performance compared to new motherboards), or they might find some flaw with it and ditch it in a very short time. Intel's S423 is a perfect example of this.

On paper, AMD has always favored backwards compatibility more than Intel. However, the newer Super7 chips were really limited by older Socket7 boards. My high-end SocketA board only supported 4-bit multipliers, so I couldn't use the higher settings on newer chips. I'm on an i7 right now because my old AM2 board couldn't be flashed to AM2+, and therefore I couldn't just drop in a new PhII. There are a lot of factors that come into play.

Worst case scenario, AMD could find some issue with AM3 in a month and discontinue it. At that point, the AM2+ boards might be considered better due to supporting AM2 and AM3 CPUs, while the discontinued AM3 boards would require AM3 CPUs and DDR3. That's very unlikely, but I don't think any of us can see into the future.

sirmonkey1985 said:

there may be a am3+ eventually but its not going to change the socket.. only difference would be the HT.. i think the bulldozer is suppose to use HT 3.1 or 4.0 something like that.. so it would still work on the am3 board just like am2+ cpu's worked on the am2 motherboards..

currently the phenom II technically only supports ddr3 1333.. but almost all the motherboards can overclock the memory to 1600mhz..

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let me state amd is going lga with bulldozer also remember its from the ground up am3 may be the end of the line though maybe amd may toss us a bulldozer am3 core like the am2+ pII's

maxius said:

let me state amd is going lga with bulldozer also remember its from the ground up am3 may be the end of the line though maybe amd may toss us a bulldozer am3 core like the am2+ pII's

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Well, that sucks. How far off is bulldozer?

Nobody really knows, could be anywhere from late this year to early 2011 at the rate AMD is going.

maxius said:

let me state amd is going lga with bulldozer also remember its from the ground up am3 may be the end of the line though maybe amd may toss us a bulldozer am3 core like the am2+ pII's

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ummmmmm dunno about the LGA socket format for anything but opteron processors; main reason to doing LGA socket on the opterons was to seperate the platforms so that people dont start cross-mixing shit and then going "OMG WHY IS IT NOT WORKING"

In regards to DDR3 support - as of now all am3 procs support up to DDR3-1333; I heard some rumors about the 945 and 955 being able to support 1600 natively but its all rumors and probably wont happen as these are slated to be released by the end of the month