What constitutes AM3+? I had heard that the 800 series chipsets would support BD while the 700's might not. Does that mean the 800's are AM3+?
at least intel is honest about it; they ALWAYS change sockets and make no bones about it. AMD should have told everyone that up front. How many people have bought new am3 rigs in the past 6 months, planning to drop in a BD in 2011?
"The existing G34 and C32 server infrastructure will support the new Bulldozer-based server products. In order for AMD’s desktop offering to fully leverage the capabilities of Bulldozer, an enhanced AM3+ socket will be introduced that supports Bulldozer and is backward-compatible with our existing AM3 CPU offerings."
"When we initially set out on the path to Bulldozer we were hoping for AM3 compatibility, but further along the process we realized that we had a choice to make based on some of the features that we wanted to bring with Bulldozer. We could either provide AM3 support and lose some of the capabilities of the new Bulldozer architecture or, we could choose the AM3+ socket which would allow the Bulldozer-base Zambezi to have greater performance and capability.
The majority of the computer buying public will not upgrade their processors, but enthusiasts do. When we did the analysis it was clear that the customers who were most likely to upgrade an AM3 motherboard to a Bulldozer would want the features and capability that would only be delivered in the new AM3+ sockets. A classic Catch-22.
Why not do both you ask? Just make a second model that only works in AM3? First, because that would greatly increase the cost and infrastructure of bringing the product to market, which would drive up the cost of the product (for both AMD and its partners). Secondly, adding an additional product would double the time involved in many of the development steps.
So in the end, delivering an AM3 capability would bring you a less featured product that was more expensive and later to market. Instead we chose the path of the AM3+ socket, which is a path that we hope will bring you a better priced product, with greater performance and more features - on time.
When we looked at the market for AM3 upgrades, it was clear that the folks most interested in an AM3-based product were the enthusiasts. This is one set of customers that we know are not willing to settle for second best when it comes to performance, so we definitely needed to ensure that our new architecture would meet their demanding needs, for both high performance and overclockability. We believe they will see that in AM3+."
They had planned on going AM3 with the processor, but made the decision to update the socket to enable some of the additional features. It is probably a year away from release (for Desktop Zambezi), so it isn't like they told us this just before launch.
I can understand being upset if you bought an AM3 MB recently planning on dropping in a Bulldozer in the future, but I can't fault them for making this change and announcing it when they did. I just don't see how this is considered dishonest, when they likely were planning on using AM3 when that slide was produced in 2009.
Why even call it AM3+ if there's no BC? Why not just call it AM4?
Why even call it AM3+ if there's no BC? Why not just call it AM4?
Why even call it AM3+ if there's no BC? Why not just call it AM4?
"The existing G34 and C32 server infrastructure will support the new Bulldozer-based server products. In order for AMD’s desktop offering to fully leverage the capabilities of Bulldozer, an enhanced AM3+ socket will be introduced that supports Bulldozer and is backward-compatible with our existing AM3 CPU offerings."
it's still not as frequent as intel
they had to make a jump sooner or later if they wanted to catch up
FUD. Hardocp had a forum thread with JFAMD confirming it will work with AM3, but it won't have the full-featureset (assumed to be power gating and advanced turbos).
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1542817
Kyle_Bennett HardOCP Editor-in-Chief, 13.3 Years
Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadowStriker
Does that mean you'll be getting one for review?
I have no reason to think we would not. Quite frankly I am tired of hearing about Bulldozer and am ready to use it.
Just to be clear, YES, Bulldozer will be backwards compatible with socket AM3. tt will however loose some of its feature set. AMD was not specific on what features but it seemed to me that it would be low power features/gating etc.
Last edited by Kyle_Bennett; 08-24-2010 at 08:10 AM..
But if you look further down that thread you see that I corrected him.
fwiw, 775 lasted a long time. the current state of sockets is a joke and an effort to squeeze more $, imo.+1
lets trace what intel did..
You guys remember that socket that was very short lived right b4 775?
The one which forced us to go on RamBus ram?
Then Intel does this 1366 -> 2011 nonsense... and 1156 ->1155.
that statement was confusing, jfamd. did you correct him by telling him that BD will NOT work in am3 mobos? I didn't see anything from you at all in that thread. Did you say something in a different thread? did you "correct" him by telling him that BD will be am3 compatible?
However, what this tells me is that they really are quite far from releasing Zambezi. If they really are only just now getting down to publicizing this decision point then that says they are at least a year away from releasing the platform.