AMD AM2/2+ AM3 Questions

rojones

rojones

rojones

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26 Jul 2007
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Its been a long time since i took much notice of whats happening in the CPU world. But im thinking of maybe doing a cheap upgrade and by cheap i mean something in the just over £200 ballpark for Mobo/CPU/Ram. Im not much of an intel fan so im not bothered about what they have to offer.

What im confused by are these AM2 Board listed as AM2+/AM3 support. Do i take it that AM3 CPU's work in the without any issues and these board will also support any upcoming AM3 CPUs ? and is it simply the Chipset / DDR3 Difference ?

I was looking at something like

Asus M4A78 AMD 770 (Socket AM3/AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £59.98
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 940 Black Edition 3.0GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail £132.99
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (KHX8500D2K2/4G) £37.98

which is about £230

But like i say what im hesitant about is this AM2+/AM3 Board ? i just need someone to spell it out for me :)

Thanks
 
I think it means it supports newer AM2 Chips, and AM3 chips as well, but i'm an intel fan, so I might be wrong.
 
siumatfung said:
corsair ram DDR2 PC8500 is £37
Click to expand...

Yeh i noticed, 98 pence between the two i assume the old adage you pay for what you get might have come in to play and the Kingston is on offer.

But anyway i can fine tune those details later. Its this AM2+/AM3 Motherboard thing im confused about.

Perhaps i need to just open this up to spec me a Mobo/CPU/Ram thread also for around the £230ish mark. AMD only :)
 
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The boards should accept future AM3 cpu's using DDR2 memory, belongs AMD still use dual memory controllers.
 
Would this perhaps be a better alternative ?

Asus M4A78T-E AMD 790GX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £98.99
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail £79.99
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3P13334GK) £46.99

?
 
but does that then mean that the difference between AM2+ and AM3 chips isn't that great? Or is the difference between socket 775 and 1366 just very large? (sorry for the questions lol)
 
AM3 / AM2+ cpu's are similar bar the AM3 cpu's have both memory controllers built in, But in real world test there seems little difference, with I7 and core 2 duo these use different architecture.

Sorry I can't explain better as my knowledge is limited, hopefully someone might explain better than me. :)
 
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