“The ink is barely dry on AMD’s Socket AM2 Phenom II launch, but Sunnyvale is making up for lost time when it comes to debuting new products. On Monday, February 9, the CPU manufacturer released a total of five new Phenom II-class processors, all of which are classified as Socket AM3 parts. Unlike Socket AM2 chips, which are only compatible with DDR2 memory, Socket AM3 CPUs can use either RAM standard and drop neatly into either motherboard. The backwards-compatibility of Socket AM3 chips should make them quite attractive to anyone upgrading an older Athlon 64 X2 or even a Phenom part; AMD’s Phenom II (aka Deneb) offers a number of significant performance and thermal improvements over the ill-fated Phenom I. Remember that backward compatibility only goes one direction – AM2+ processors will not work in AM3 boards.”
It’s a nice upgrade path from AMD.
Choice is always important, and I hope this kind of compatibility continue as a trend from now on.
Seems a pretty good move by them, unlike intil making you need a new socket.
I bet this will deffinatly work out in AMD’s favour!
http://www.tomshardware.com/picturestory/491-phenom-ii-ln2.html
the X3 version (AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition) was able to get a ~100% overclock. It seems AMD was able to fix the cold bugs.
From the article:
With the Phenom II, AMD has overcome a huge headache commonly referred to as the “cold bug.†Most processors in the past would have different types of cold bugs. A cold bug could effect stability during overclocking, while severe bugs would completely shut down the computer or prevent it from booting. Not all chips have the bugs at the same level. Some of the original Phenoms experienced bugs as high (or low, depending on how you’re looking at it) as 0 C, while other chips went down to -40 C before running into problems with lock-ups.
Good to see AMD is still pursuing Intel!
All I really need are faster multi-core CPUs that use less energy that the ones before them did.
What is the point in making new sockets and forcing everyone to buy a new motherboard along with a new CPU? What does the Socket AM3 offer that the AM2 does not offer?
Why can’t we go back to Socket 7 and Socket A for the new chips? Does inventing new sockets really make the chips go faster, or is it just a scam to get us all to buy new motherboards and new systems?
Think about the planet, all of those old parts get scrapped and thrown in a dumpster, ruining the Earth.
AM3 supports DDR3 while AM2 doesn’t.
The memory controller is now inside the CPU instead the chipset. To support DDR3 the controller needs more “wires” than to support DDR2, so the socket needs more contacts.
Socket7 and Socket A were designed to work with the memory controller in the chipset instead the CPU, with a frontside bus instead hipertransport links, single data rate instead double data rate ….
<sarcasm>Why can’t we go back to 8bit processors for new chips?</sarcasm>
Just to correct you, AMD processors have had the memory controller integrated for ages, I think since the first 64 bit chip….
Secondly, the AM3 socket has 938 pins, where as AM2/AM2+ has 940… so that arguement doesn’t really stack up…
Infact, at toms hardware, they tried to put an AM2+ Phenom 2 chip into an AM3 mobo by breaking off the two offending pins… that didn’t work, but putting the chip back in an AM2+ board minus the two pins still worked… weird..
Just thought I would clear that up.
I know, but I was responding to his argument about socket 7, and for that systems the memory controller was on chipset.
I know that too. Just so you know, there are more diferences than the memory controller. More Hipertransport links, faster Hipertransport links, more pins for memory, less pins for other things, pins on a diferent place… the total amount of pins on the sockets doesn’t mean that ddr3 needs the same amount of pins that ddr2 uses.
This AMD chips are backward compatible, that means you can place a AM3 chip on an AM2 board and it runs (without ddr3), but backward compatibility only works in one direction. There is no way an AM2 chip can work on an AM3 board.
Next time I’ll try to remember to quote what i’m responding to, to make it clearer.
Edited 2009-02-11 23:57 UTC