# ASUS Lists AM3 CPU-supportive AM2 and AM2+ Motherboards



## btarunr (Nov 12, 2008)

ASUS has published a partial list of motherboards that support the upcoming AM3 socket processors.

Featured in the lists are most motherboards based on the AMD 7-series chipsets, along with those based on GeForce 8 and 7-series chipsets by NVIDIA. 



 



Press release follows:



ASUS, worldwide leader of motherboard production, has once again kept up with leading trends and technologies with the announcement to release a wide range of high-performance motherboards that will take advantage of the most high-end and upcoming AMD AM3 CPUs. This new generation of AMD CPUs will encompass the 45nm infrastructure; and will be equipped with C1E halt states for advanced power savings. The most distinguishing feature of the AM3 CPUs is the fact that they will support DDR3 RAM. In order to meet user demands for top-of-the-line CPUs that deliver advanced performance, the ASUS M3/M2 Series motherboards will offer the most completed product lines to fully support the upcoming AM3 CPUs.

*AM3 CPU Ready Motherboards* 
The list below shows the ASUS motherboards that are currently AM3 CPU-ready. For users who have already purchased the M3 or M2 Series motherboards, a simple BIOS update is all that is needed to support future AM3 CPUs. The following list will be continuously updated and more AM3 CPU-ready ASUS motherboards are expected to be announced soon.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## kenkickr (Nov 12, 2008)

That's great, not!  I don't see M3A32-MVP on there.


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## WhiteLotus (Nov 12, 2008)

Might come later with a BIOS upgrade - never know!


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## kid41212003 (Nov 12, 2008)

So, M2N32 and all the high-end AM2 mobo are not supported.


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## btarunr (Nov 12, 2008)

kenkickr said:


> That's great, not!  I don't see M3A32-MVP on there.



Heh...you notice what those AMD 7-series boards have in common...they were new SKUs ASUS rolled out, brandishing "140W CPU" support. They're sandbagging a bit too much for their own good, lately. Now that my M3A32-MVP isn't in that list, ASUS is out of my list.


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## kenkickr (Nov 12, 2008)

They were out of my list when I had to RMA my board for the 2nd time.  Once I get mine back I'm selling the POS.


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## Steevo (Nov 12, 2008)

I agree, if the M3A32 is not supporting new chips this will be the last Asus I will have. Total BS to throw out a board and then drop it after you  made the sale.


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## ASharp (Nov 12, 2008)

Looks like the M3A79-T Deluxe is on there. Good news for me.  Now let's see how well these new processors perform. Where are you Deneb???!

Also, it would be really stupid of ASUS not to support the M3A32. It's the same board as the M3A79-T...just different southbridge. How hard would it be to program a BIOS for it?


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## servermonkey (Nov 12, 2008)

ASharp said:


> Looks like the M3A79-T Deluxe is on there. Good news for me.  Now let's see how well these new processors perform. Where are you Deneb???!



meeee toooooo!!

yippie


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## chaotic_uk (Nov 12, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Heh...you notice what those AMD 7-series boards have in common...they were new SKUs ASUS rolled out, brandishing "140W CPU" support.



gigabyte have done the same with my mobo , the GA-MA770-DS3 rev2 now has support for the 140w cpus but no mention of am3 support yet . rev1 does not support them


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## ShadowFold (Nov 12, 2008)

Looks like the M3A79-T and a mid end AM3 x4.. Unless they get a cheap 870/880 chipsets out. Anyone know if they are making 800 series chipsets soon? Those are gonna be DDR3 right?


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## WhiteLotus (Nov 12, 2008)

Looks like i may be going to AM3 then, some research i think will be required!


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## mdm-adph (Nov 12, 2008)

Now, let's just see MSI come out with the same kinda list.


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## WarEagleAU (Nov 12, 2008)

Pshaw not supporting the M3a32MVP Deluxe WiFi. I have one I havent messed with yet. Id like to see one from Gigabyte though.

Hijacking the thread here, how good is the new M3a79-T mobo?


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## Skywalker12345 (Nov 12, 2008)

yea i hope they come out with a 800 series soon and the AM3 soon cuz i wanna upgrade to that if not soon then intel quad here i come


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## btarunr (Nov 12, 2008)

AMD confirms that AM3 processors are still backward-compatible with AM2/AM2+ sockets. They natively support DDR2.


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## Valdez (Nov 12, 2008)

I hope m2n-e will be on the list very soon


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## VulkanBros (Nov 12, 2008)

Yeah....thats nice...I was originally ordering the M3A32MVP Deluxe WiFi but it was sold out - 
so I got the M3A79-T Deluxe board instead....maybe there is a god afterall..


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## kysg (Nov 12, 2008)

btarunr said:


> AMD confirms that AM3 processors are still backward-compatible with AM2/AM2+ sockets. They natively support DDR2.



Good news then, Because heck I don't plan to go to another mobo till DFI releases another matx, but still the gains would be minimal, only benefit is full 16x crossfire.  and DDR3.  and since DFI is usually slower when it comes to matx I might not see an upgrade for the mobo for a long time.


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## aj28 (Nov 13, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Heh...you notice what those AMD 7-series boards have in common...they were new SKUs ASUS rolled out, brandishing "140W CPU" support. They're sandbagging a bit too much for their own good, lately. Now that my M3A32-MVP isn't in that list, ASUS is out of my list.



They also have SB700/SB750 in common... I admit I'm not real well-read on the topic of AM3 compatibility, but it would make sense that something like the southbridge would play into the equation. After all, SB600 was 690V/690G generation hardware...


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## btarunr (Nov 13, 2008)

aj28 said:


> They also have SB700/SB750 in common... I admit I'm not real well-read on the topic of AM3 compatibility, but it would make sense that something like the southbridge would play into the equation. After all, SB600 was 690V/690G generation hardware...



Apparently that isn't the case with those NVIDIA chipsets, right? The only thing SB600 and SB700 have different is the SATA port count (and that they use A-Link 2.0 (PCI-E 2.0 x4 connection with the NB)), while SB750 is the one that features ACC (Advanced Clock Caliberation). So SB700 is more similar to SB600 than to SB750. The GeForce 7/8 motherboards don't sport ACC, so chipset/southbridge isn't the issue there. A southbridge can never impact on CPU support.


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## powerwolf (Nov 13, 2008)

mdm-adph said:


> Now, let's just see MSI come out with the same kinda list.



http://global.msi.com.tw/html/popup/MB/45nm/en/index.html


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## Mussels (Nov 13, 2008)

all you people complaining about lack of AM3 support on your boards: you do realise that has nothing to do with asus, and all about the boards you chose? if you want an AM3 supporting board, WAIT til its known. its your own fault for buying unsupported boards.


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## kysg (Nov 13, 2008)

I wouldn't say complaining, I think some people are just slightly concerned but then again, most people will just move to an AM3 board anyways, depending on how good the 8 series is.  I hope 8 series isn't just another die shrink, Me personally I know I am skipping it because there will be no gain at all except for DDR3 and full 16x crossfire at pci 2.0. and possible 3.0 I dunno if there going to have that or not.  I know it ends up deeper than that but for the matx dept its really a slow area before anything good happens there.


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## Mussels (Nov 13, 2008)

kysg said:


> I wouldn't say complaining, I think some people are just slightly concerned


they're threatening to never buy asus again, just because their board wont do AM3. i wouldnt call that 'concerned' - its not like the box ever said it was AM3 capable.


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## kid41212003 (Nov 13, 2008)

AMD stated in their documents, that AM3 cpu will run on AM2+ mainboards.
People expect all the AM2+ mobo will support it. It's AMD's fault in my point of view.
Oh well, I'm not really expect my mobo would run AMD3 cpu (AM2 socket), because I'm going Intel soon anyway.


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## Mussels (Nov 13, 2008)

kid41212003 said:


> AMD stated in their documents, that AM3 cpu will run on AM2+ mainboards.
> People expect all the AM2+ mobo will support it. It's AMD's fault in my point of view.
> Oh well, I'm not really expect my mobo would run AMD3 cpu (AM2 socket), because I'm going Intel soon anyway.



well we've already had that. AM2 boards that wont take AM2+(phenoms), AM2+ that cant take 140W AM2 (Athlon) CPU's.... AMD's CPU support is a total mess.


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## ShadowFold (Nov 13, 2008)

Intel's was worse when the 45's came out. Most P35 and under didn't support anything without a bios flash..


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 13, 2008)

Mussels said:


> well we've already had that. AM2 boards that wont take AM2+(phenoms), AM2+ that cant take 140W AM2 (Athlon) CPU's.... AMD's CPU support is a total mess.



Remember this was the Same Situation Intel was in with the P4 and even the Early Core 2 Mobos cant support the quads.


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## Mussels (Nov 13, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> Remember this was the Same Situation Intel was in with the P4 and even the Early Core 2 Mobos cant support the quads.



except that intel never said it *would* work, while AMD did.


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## ShadowFold (Nov 13, 2008)

Most Phenoms do work on AM2 boards. I know the 500 series chipsets had support along with some Nforce 500's.


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## kysg (Nov 13, 2008)

well lets just hope amd does it right, heck we already know they are make Am2+ deneb anyways so I see honest reason to complain, now maybe everyone can't afford those but still I think its a bit better than nothing.


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## Mussels (Nov 13, 2008)

ShadowFold said:


> Most Phenoms do work on AM2 boards. I know the 500 series chipsets had support along with some Nforce 500's.



i know of two people with boards that cant. ones my new housemate, the others my dad. ones an asus board, ones a gigabyte. Unsure chipsets used, i'm pretty sure they're Nvidia but no idea what ones.

AMD shouldnt make blanket claims, it all comes down to the chipsets used in the boards, and manufacturers do stupid things there (re-using Nforce 4  seems popular)


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## Hayder_Master (Nov 13, 2008)

i think new AM3 mobos come with new product name , how we can recognize 790fx with AM2 and new one with AM3


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## Mussels (Nov 13, 2008)

hayder.master said:


> i think new AM3 mobos come with new product name , how we can recognize 790fx with AM2 and new one with AM3



the chipset can be the same, the motherboards from the manufacturers will be named differently.


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## VulkanBros (Nov 15, 2008)

My old board, ASUS CROSSHAIR (nForce 590) was running just fine with 
the 9850 BE- after ASUS made a BIOS update.. so it is maybe possible to get AM2 boards  AM3 compatible?? or atleast AM2+ boards. 
For what I can recall from ASUS's BIOS update, it was something about the memory speeds (800 - 1066 MHz)


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## btarunr (Nov 16, 2008)

Mussels said:


> all you people complaining about lack of AM3 support on your boards: you do realise that has nothing to do with asus, and all about the boards you chose? if you want an AM3 supporting board, WAIT til its known. its your own fault for buying unsupported boards.



The AMD promise: Every AM3 processor would be backwards-compatible with AM2+ and AM2 motherboards, AM2+ processors with AM3 and AM2, AM2 with AM2+ and AM3 (provided the supportive memory standard is there on the motherboard). So from AMD's side it's possibile, not from motherboard vendors' side, and not because it's impossible. They want you to buy a new motherboard each time you upgrade your AMD processor, which originally shouldn't be the case. Isn't that a put-off? Wouldn't you want to switch over to Intel since you're made to buy both the processor and motherboard anyway?


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2008)

btarunr said:


> The AMD promise: Every AM3 processor would be backwards-compatible with AM2+ and AM2 motherboards, AM2+ processors with AM3 and AM2, AM2 with AM2+ and AM3 (provided the supportive memory standard is there on the motherboard). So from AMD's side it's possibile, not from motherboard vendors' side, and not because it's impossible. They want you to buy a new motherboard each time you upgrade your AMD processor, which originally shouldn't be the case. Isn't that a put-off? Wouldn't you want to switch over to Intel since you're made to buy both the processor and motherboard anyway?



the AMD promise thats not holding true. is that the motherboard manufacturers fault, the chipset manufacturers fault, or AMD's fault?


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## btarunr (Nov 16, 2008)

Mussels said:


> the AMD promise thats not holding true. is that the motherboard manufacturers fault, the chipset manufacturers fault, or AMD's fault?



Motherboard vendors'. AMD isn't doing anything on its side that causes incompatibility? What makes a M3A32-MVP incapable of AM3, when a M3A79-T is? (they're both AM2+ boards based on the same AMD 790FX). Chipset has nothing to do with CPU compatibility. All its job is, is to provide a HyperTransport connection to the rest of the system. Technically even a nForce 3 (that ran those s754 chips) is capable to run a Phenom II X4, although the socket doesn't permit that.


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## kid41212003 (Nov 16, 2008)

Isn't all those unsupported AM3 CPU mobo are AM2+?
AMD stated a simple thing, that AM3 CPU would run on AM2+ sockets. Aren't those *unsupported AM3 CPU mobo* are AM2+?
If they stated AM3 CPU would run on AMD Chipsit AM2+ mobo, then It would be different story.


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## eidairaman1 (Nov 16, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Motherboard vendors'. AMD isn't doing anything on its side that causes incompatibility? What makes a M3A32-MVP incapable of AM3, when a M3A79-T is? (they're both AM2+ boards based on the same AMD 790FX). Chipset has nothing to do with CPU compatibility. All its job is, is to provide a HyperTransport connection to the rest of the system. Technically even a nForce 3 (that ran those s754 chips) is capable to run a Phenom II X4, although the socket doesn't permit that.



Its all about BIOS coding, and also if they want to milk you of money or not, its not AMD that controls the Motherboard Manufacturers Compatibility with Certain CPUs but the Manufacturers Themselves, beyond that who has a 790FX with 600SB.


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## btarunr (Nov 16, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> Its all about BIOS coding, and also if they want to milk you of money or not, its not AMD that controls the Motherboard Manufacturers Compatibility with Certain CPUs but the Manufacturers Themselves, beyond that who has a 790FX with 600SB.



Neither BIOS, nor SB600 shouldn't have anything to do with AM3 compatibility. MSI enabled its 790FX + SB600 board to support AM3 chips. It's all about them sandbagging to milk you, which is a scam. It's not something restricted to ASUS, all vendors are guilty of this. A lot of people faced disappointent when their MSI AM2 nForce 570 SLI / 590 SLI boards didn't support Phenom. 

Oh, and I just forgot: Crosshair II Formula doesn't support AM3 either. Shame.


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## FudFighter (Nov 16, 2008)

yeah this is all about greed, bios are the only reasion, chipset has NO EFFECT on this, there are am2 boards with sis chipsets that came  out long b4 the am2 socket came out(well use to be, havent seen any for a while but i have seen them and used them) 

this isnt like am2 vs am2+, alot of am2 boards lacked enought room in their EEPROM's(bios chips) to accept the needed code to support k10, Really any am2 board could take a k10 IF u replaced the bios chip with one that was large enought containing the am2+ bios the board would support those chips.

Also talking about the 125 and 140watt cpu's and some am2+ boards, this was due to volt chips used, alot of boards blew out on 9850's at stock clocks due to power draw excceding what the boards chips could maintain, I have seen 790fx msi, asus, gigabyte and other brands burn out.

weird one was the biostar ta770's a cheap board thats managed to support the 9850be without blowing dispite being a cheapo board(but a great one for clockers) 

board makers should have thought ahead and used better fets but they didnt, so well, rev2 boards had to come out to support 125 and 140watt chips.

cant wait to see the new chips, From what I understand biostar plans to offer bios updates to support new 45nm core chips, so they are a good bet if you want a kickass overclocking board, the ta790gx3 is a pretty sweet board


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## Steevo (Nov 16, 2008)

I have a 140W board, I bought it to support the current offering, plus one more upgrade later to the CPU plus crossfire. Now I am being told that they will NOT support it, and yet Deneb has been seen running in the same chipsets on different boards?



Sounds like a lawsuit brewing against AMD and some board makers for false advertising to me.


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## FudFighter (Nov 16, 2008)

its not amd's fault here Steevo, board makers are the ones who have to supply the needed bios upgrade PERIOD, if they choose not to, then your welcome to try and sue them, but unless u can start somthing like a classaction your pretty much screwed.

best bet is to get enought outrage in the geek community to force/shame them into putting out the damn update, asus sucks for MOTHERBOARDS, at least for AMD boards, for intel i hear they are fine.

My advice just email Asus and tell them you wont be buying another ASUS product due to them not updating perfectly capable boards to support new cpu's.


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## FudFighter (Nov 16, 2008)

if anybody wants to email somebody at asus to complain about this 
MEGAN_NESMITH@asus.com

shes a NICE rma rep, and im sure would forword your emails to the proper person OR will give you the proper addy to address complains to


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## AphexDreamer (Nov 16, 2008)

I think the reason why the M3A32-MVP is not supported is because of the South Bridge, it's not 700 or 750 to support AM3 like the rest. The M3A32 has SB600 so it can't be done with a BIOS update.

The only thing I would complain about is why they would release a Phenom Board with SB600; seems to me they just wanted to rush a release with something to get it flowing.


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## FudFighter (Nov 16, 2008)

AphexDreamer, the chipset has ZERO to do with it, the 700 is just a 600 with some minor changes, mainly 2 more sata ports.

i think you need to try and understand the tech b4 you assume that the chipset matters.

truth is that an nf4 board COULD run an am2+ or even am3 chip just as the old first gen ATI crossire set with sb400/450 could run am2+(but who would do that, the usb perf on that set suckd!!) 

its simply a bios update that is needed, nothing more.......


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2008)

FudFighter said:


> its simply a bios update that is needed, nothing more.......



thats not true in all situations. as stated before, some boards couldnt handle higher power draw, some had physical limitations due to the BIOS chip. SOME boards only need a BIOS update, but how can you be sure that a hardware update isnt neccesary too?

one good example here from (past generations) is half multiplier support: some motherboards couldnt handle it right, and even with BIOS updates, they gave out some really whacky ram speeds due to not fully supporting it.


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## AphexDreamer (Nov 16, 2008)

FudFighter said:


> AphexDreamer, the chipset has ZERO to do with it, the 700 is just a 600 with some minor changes, mainly 2 more sata ports.
> 
> i think you need to try and understand the tech b4 you assume that the chipset matters.
> 
> ...



Sorry... Just an assumption really. Every board listed there has 700 or 750SB and the M3A32 doesn't so I figured that's why.


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## FudFighter (Nov 16, 2008)

Mussels said:


> thats not true in all situations. as stated before, some boards couldnt handle higher power draw, some had physical limitations due to the BIOS chip. SOME boards only need a BIOS update, but how can you be sure that a hardware update isnt neccesary too?
> 
> one good example here from (past generations) is half multiplier support: some motherboards couldnt handle it right, and even with BIOS updates, they gave out some really whacky ram speeds due to not fully supporting it.



yeah i said that didnt i?  about power limmits?

in this case the new chips use LESS power then the current ones so thats not an issue.

as to multi's in my exp, alot of that was the bios, i had 2 boards that had that problem with the first few bios, and you STILL get weird memory clocks with many newer boards at half multi's, just due to how amd's chips work, not really a big issue, infact a few times it was a good thing because i was able to get a little extra out of my chip where i wouldnt have been able to if the memory devider was proper(could get ram to its max and cpu to its or damn close for best balance) 

if the chipset mattered you wouldnt see any 700 boards with am3 support, since the 700 is really just an updated 700, the 750 has some fearther improovements that make it better for clocking in some situations, but nothing really "drastic" from the specs i read.

700 has a clock bug that in some cases causes problems with raid when overclocking, again nothing most people would notice or be effected by.


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## FudFighter (Nov 16, 2008)

yeah, its because asus wants to only support newer boards and everybody wants 700/750 now, pretty common of them REALLY , nothing suprising to me really, asus sucks on amd stuff


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## Mussels (Nov 16, 2008)

FudFighter said:


> yeah i said that didnt i?  about power limmits?
> 
> in this case the new chips use LESS power then the current ones so thats not an issue.



ah, but what if those boards cant go low enough? what if the silly boards put too much power into the memory controller or something like that, and the hardware isnt in place to lower it.

seriously, EVERYONE is speculating. no one knows if more will be unlocked, or other companies will even do the same thing - asus are the first people to say what boards of theirs will do AM3, who knows if its a complete list yet.


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