AM3+ Processor Support BIOS Updates Available for Several MSI Motherboards

[btarunr]

Leading international mainboard and graphics card maker MSI released the mainboard BIOS with full AMD AM3+ 8-core CPU support for download today. Enthusiasts that own one of the listed mainboards1 can now download the update to support the latest AMD AM3+ 8-core CPUs (B2 Stepping). For those planning to purchase a new mainboard, if the box is labeled with "Supports AM3+ CPU with New BIOS," the mainboard will support the powerful AMD AM3+ 8-core CPUs out of the box. Enthusiasts that have purchased a mainboard that is on the list of compatible mainboards can update the BIOS themselves to support the latest AM3+ 8-core CPUs. Also, new in this BIOS update is official support for MSI's proprietary ClickBIOS II system optimization tool for all AMD 900 mainboards. The graphical UEFI BIOS provides mainboard-level support, and exporting OC Profiles to USB drives offers unparalleled convenience.



Support for Latest AMD AM3+ 8-core CPUs Out of the Box with Designated Mainboards
Starting today, enthusiasts can purchase MSI mainboards with a "Supports AM3+ CPU with New BIOS" label on the box. The labeling indicates that the mainboard has been updated with the latest BIOS and already supports the AMD AM3+ 8-core CPUs (B2 Stepping), so users can enjoy the extreme performance of the next-generation processors straight out of the box. Buyers of MSI mainboards on the list of compatible models will not need to buy a new mainboard. Once they update to the new BIOS, their mainboard will be ready for AMD AM3+ 8-core CPUs.

ClickBIOS II on all MSI AMD 900 Mainboards
All MSI AMD 900 mainboards now also come with MSI's proprietary ClickBIOS II UEFI. System settings can be adjusted using the mouse, and the ClickBIOS II utility also supports online driver updates, BIOS updates and full-system backups. Also, for the first time ever, OC profiles can also be exported to USB drives under UEFI, a very convenient feature for overclocking enthusiasts.



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[claylomax]

I doubt "Enthusiasts" are going to get a Bulldozer chip.

 

[DrunkenMafia]

^ I have bd coming.
Call me stupid, but its coming!!

 

[AsRock]

I guess they were wrong about mine as seen as they removed it. No harm done though just curious..

 

[xaira]

i was looking through msi's boards yesterday and i noticed that none of them had any fx processors in the cpu support list, but some had fx in the name so...

 

[Zubasa]

i was looking through msi's boards yesterday and i noticed that none of them had any fx processors in the cpu support list, but some had fx in the name so...

Huh?
My board have all of the FX procs in its support list.

 

[v12dock]

So were these reviews done on unofficially supported motherboards?

 

[Thefumigator]

I want a bd but no the 8 core one, give me 6 cores at 95w and I'll be happy as soon as it runs better than my current phenom X4 9550.

 

[Super XP]

I doubt "Enthusiasts" are going to get a Bulldozer chip.

Why not? I can't wait to get mine so I can play with it and see what it can really do. Reviews be damned, software, OS and AMD are to blame for it's recent performance hickups. But you should now check out reviews with real retail copies, it blows away the fastest Phenom II by a huge %.

I want a bd but no the 8 core one, give me 6 cores at 95w and I'll be happy as soon as it runs better than my current phenom X4 9550.

Good point but I like the fact you can turn off cores so you can turn your 8-core monster into a 4 or 6 core I believe. Anyway Bulldozer don't break the bank all that much which makes for a great upgrade now then you can always swap it out for a Piledriver in Q1 2012.

 

[erocker]

But you should now check out reviews with real retail copies, it blows away the fastest Phenom II by a huge %.
.

Complete nonsense. I have a retail FX-8150 and it certainly does not. All of the official reviews used retail chips. Some of the reviewers didn't use the correct CPU-Z that came with the review kit and it shows as ES.

 

[cadaveca]

Complete nonsense. I have a retail FX-8150 and it certainly does not. All of the official reviews used retail chips. Some of the reviewers didn't use the correct CPU-Z that came with the review kit and it shows as ES.

This FA1 that most of the reviewer got

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/5985/screenshot005kq.jpg

FA retail chip from Newegg

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/7557/screenshot001pz.jpg

Both batches will show ES with CPUZ 1.58

There is a difference, apparantly. Otherwise reviewers would have "FA" chips. AMD has ZERO reason to label those chips differently. What that difference is, will probably never be known.

What IS for sure, is that it matters NOT for performance.

 

[Steevo]

Why not? I can't wait to get mine so I can play with it and see what it can really do. Reviews be damned, software, OS and AMD are to blame for it's recent performance hickups. But you should now check out reviews with real retail copies, it blows away the fastest Phenom II by a huge %.

Good point but I like the fact you can turn off cores so you can turn your 8-core monster into a 4 or 6 core I believe. Anyway Bulldozer don't break the bank all that much which makes for a great upgrade now then you can always swap it out for a Piledriver in Q1 2012.

Everything you just said is either wrong, or doesn't apply as Phenom can do it.


I can down core, I can overclock, A X6 is 189 at the egg with free shipping, and its available.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

I doubt "Enthusiasts" are going to get a Bulldozer chip.

I bought one for my media server.

^ I have bd coming.
Call me stupid, but its coming!!

Just got mine today, not expecting much.



/topic good to see MSi has UEFI

 

[Mussels]

So were these reviews done on unofficially supported motherboards?

an interesting question.

 

[Dent1]

I doubt "Enthusiasts" are going to get a Bulldozer chip.

Yh because only somebody whom browses the internet all day needs 8 cores.

/sarcasm.

 

[Super XP]

Everything you just said is either wrong, or doesn't apply as Phenom can do it.

I can down core, I can overclock, A X6 is 189 at the egg with free shipping, and its available.

No, what every I said does apply, the point I was trying to make is Bulldozer on paper and it's computer generated design IS theretically be 50% or more faster than current PII's and approx: 30% faster than Intel's Core i7's. Today's released Bulldozer is not due to the issues most people already outlines. Hopefully once things get ironed out, we may get close to those numbers in perhaps a B3 or C1 stepping.

 

[Steevo]

I wrote on a the internet that it wasn't.

So it isn't, and based on the reviews my factual reality trumps your theoretical dream world.

 

[ice_v]

Ok, so is it finally 100% approved that the mobos that have the AM3+ CPU Support logo, that have a white (am3) socket, will be able to host an FX cpu???

I'm guessing at this point they will also be compatible with Piledriver as well

 

[Esse]

Drat, please support the NF980-G65!

 

[Super XP]

I wrote on a the internet that it wasn't.

So it isn't, and based on the reviews my factual reality trumps your theoretical dream world.

It's fact Bulldozer is not doing all that well with Single Threaded Apps, how about Multi-Threaded? This review was hand picked benchmark utilities that show Bulldozer's strengths. it still needs fixing, I agree, but still impressive IMO. (OK so they were not hand picked as I thought)
LINK:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1285/pg5/amd-fx-8150-black-edition-8-core-processor-vs-core-i7-2600k-review-test-system-and-methodology.html

And here is a quote from the sites Administrator:

Thats pretty much what we were getting at in the article, this is a CPU which is designed for future perfomance than todays. To be honest AMD would have been happy to have everyone review with a selection of hand picked benchmarks which take advantage of the multi-threaded perfomance (and new instructions) of the FX and do it on Win 8... but that doesnt give a fair representation of what the average user will get.

For the games, i'm confident that our results will be more correct than other sites. Various reasons for that, many of which involve the tests/practices other sites use, so I wont go over that all again. Overall though any recent game which is impacted by CPU perfomance and cores will do well on AMD. F1/Dirt3 are examples of this and pretty much any decent engine going forward. (Custom engines also usually support more cores than older licenced ones, a good example being Star Trek Online which uses at least 4 cores... try getting a repeatable bench of a MMORPG though, not going to happen!)

 

[Thefumigator]

Good point but I like the fact you can turn off cores so you can turn your 8-core monster into a 4 or 6 core I believe. Anyway Bulldozer don't break the bank all that much which makes for a great upgrade now then you can always swap it out for a Piledriver in Q1 2012.

Now that you mention it, the other way around sounds even more interesting (unlock the 6 core version to 8 anyone? )

 

[chaotic_uk]

i would be careful tbh as i have read on the asus forums that my mobo has a beta bios for the fx series of cpu's , some users have purchased one of the fx cpu's and it fails to post so whats going on ? . i thought there was not that much of differance between the 890fx and the 990fx ? , anybody confirm this is the case with all the 890 series of mobo's ?

 

[claylomax]

^ I have bd coming.
Call me stupid, but its coming!!

Stupid!

 

[Steevo]

It's fact Bulldozer is not doing all that well with Single Threaded Apps, how about Multi-Threaded? This review was hand picked benchmark utilities that show Bulldozer's strengths. it still needs fixing, I agree, but still impressive IMO. (OK so they were not hand picked as I thought)
LINK:
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1285/pg5/amd-fx-8150-black-edition-8-core-processor-vs-core-i7-2600k-review-test-system-and-methodology.html

And here is a quote from the sites Administrator:

A quote from the sites administrator.

W1zz already said its a fail, our own reviewer said its a fail, AMD users have spoken its a fail.


I know I'm just a dumbfuck, but I can even see its slower in almost every way that matters. I can read the comments that it will be better with Windows 8, while that is wonderful, they intend to kill this socket before Windows 8 will come to market, making that argument invalid. Claiming future gains is what they have been doing for the past few years without delivering, plus there is no way to guarantee that software will EVER take advantage of it. Stream, Close To Metal, and many other promises they have made and software they promote as the next big thing has all fallen by the wayside.

By the time this makes its big showing there will be far faster processors that can do it better.

 

[Super XP]

A quote from the sites administrator.

W1zz already said its a fail, our own reviewer said its a fail, AMD users have spoken its a fail.


I know I'm just a dumbfuck, but I can even see its slower in almost every way that matters. I can read the comments that it will be better with Windows 8, while that is wonderful, they intend to kill this socket before Windows 8 will come to market, making that argument invalid. Claiming future gains is what they have been doing for the past few years without delivering, plus there is no way to guarantee that software will EVER take advantage of it. Stream, Close To Metal, and many other promises they have made and software they promote as the next big thing has all fallen by the wayside.

By the time this makes its big showing there will be far faster processors that can do it better.

Here is another review. Ask yourself why the Core i7 2600 is clocked 500MHz faster than the FX 8150 while benching? It looks to me the FX 8150 would have closed the gap if they were clocked the same. In my estimation if both CPU's were clocked the same, Bulldozer would have WON 7 out of those 10 Gaming Benchmarks.
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4353/amd_fx_8150_vs_intel_i7_2600k_crossfirex_hd_6970_x3_head_to_head/index5.html


You have an issue with rewarding a company with Pure out of the box Innovation. to each his own.
I admit Bulldozer was not what everybody expected. It was super hyped as a CPU that may have the ability to Bulldoze the competition. GLOF is part of the blame for bad yields and hopefully by the time Piledriver comes out things will get resolved fast.

AMD should be rewarded for "Pure Innovation" on this one hands down, regardless of reviews. AMD did something interesting & crazy at the same time, and as it stands, they have no choice but to have Bulldozer succeed.

Multi-Threaded apps = Does Alright, but could have done better.
Single Threaded apps = Should have been MUCH better.
Overall, it's a great CPU, but in order for AMD to properly compete, they need to drop the price further to a more fair price range. Give AMD some time, they will figure it out.