Interesting article on Phenom.

I like how in their first article they stressed how great it is that you don't have to upgrade to a new motherboard for phenom, and now they're "frustrated" that it turns out you can't actually do that yet.
 
Interesting that they tested the "most mainstream" boards :p That's why you need to buy a mobo with good brand. Btw, OMG my Phenom won't run on my Biostar, Epoxx, ECS, AsRock mobo...
 
alg7_munif said:
Interesting that they tested the "most mainstream" boards :p That's why you need to buy a mobo with good brand. Btw, OMG my Phenom won't run on my Biostar, Epoxx, ECS, AsRock mobo...
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Also didn't work on a Gigabyte or MSI, why are you brand whoring?, 8/10 boards were no go.
 
Only Asus has provided BIOS updates to support the new quad core on mature motherboards.
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As I mentioned in another thread, the upgrade worked fine in my Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe (Nvidia 570 chipset), which was not part of this review. Makes me glad that I went with the brand that I did. At the same time, the use of a pre-production Gigabyte board probably screwed up their results (and the authors admit this). It would be nice to hear from owners of shipping versions of that board.

I do agree, though, that some of the manufacturers are probably holding off in order to put in the TLB fix in their BIOS before release. I really do see this as a motherboard manufacturer support issue instead of something to be mad at AMD about.
 
alg7_munif said:
Interesting that they tested the "most mainstream" boards :p That's why you need to buy a mobo with good brand. Btw, OMG my Phenom won't run on my Biostar, Epoxx, ECS, AsRock mobo...
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really shouldnt matter, compatibility with AM2 was one of AMDs biggest selling points.... i'd been looking to upgrade my girlfriend's motherboard to a Phenom for months, and we just recently found out that wont be possible.....

really does suck.... looks like her am2 sempron is gonna turn into a Wolfdale instead of a Phenom.... more lost business for AMD .....
 
I read that article this morning. The one thing that was briefly mentioned/speculated is that AMD probably isn't working much with motherboard vendors to get Phenom support. Stretched too thin comes to mind, launch disaster probably isn't too far out either.

My opinion is that out of many dozens of AM2 boards available (over 200 probably), only a hand full of boards older than the launch chipsets (770/790) support Phenom. Easily 20% or less support Phenom, even within brands of "good" boards like Asus or ASRock. With the state of the launch now, what was possible months ago when AMD was originally suggesting that Phenom would launch?
 
DesertCat said:
I do agree, though, that some of the manufacturers are probably holding off in order to put in the TLB fix in their BIOS before release. I really do see this as a motherboard manufacturer support issue instead of something to be mad at AMD about.
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I think its a lot more to do with cold hard cash ! If a mobo makers boards are not selling at retail,etc,why would they bother to dump more cash after it ? Why is the patch for a game that is not selling well late ?

Why is a good bios for the 790FX boards slow to come ? etc,etc,etc,etc,etc... It all comes back to money.If they are not making money,why would they spend more to support a financially failing product ?


pxc said:
I read that article this morning. The one thing that was briefly mentioned/speculated is that AMD probably isn't working much with motherboard vendors to get Phenom support. Stretched too thin comes to mind, launch disaster probably isn't too far out either.

My opinion is that out of many dozens of AM2 boards available (over 200 probably), only a hand full of boards older than the launch chipsets (770/790) support Phenom. Easily 20% or less support Phenom, even within brands of "good" boards like Asus or ASRock. With the state of the launch now, what was possible months ago when AMD was originally suggesting that Phenom would launch?
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This is even more worrisome if true.As it been hinted by reps from OCZ,etc,that AMD are responsible for the BIOS releases to Asus,DFI,MSI,Gigbyte,etc,ulitmality.Shouldnt all this support crap have been hashed out many months ago ? Why does all this,still a month after launch,still have a distinct 'last minute','eleventh hour' feel to it.

The OEM roadmaps and rumblings from mobo makers of late say that more delays are going to be the order of the day going into the first and second quarter of 2008 with AMD's Phenom quads and tri's.
 
Manny Calavera said:
I think its a lot more to do with cold hard cash ! If a mobo makers boards are not selling at retail,etc,why would they bother to dump more cash after it ?
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I think that's very true. To my benefit the M2N-SLI Deluxe is a motherboard that Asus is still selling. It is very much in their interest to keep "current" products compatible with new processors.
 
Well, my question is why can a couple motherboard manufacturers update the BIOS for Phenom and others can't? To me if Asus can then why not the others? This also reminds me of the whole issue Abit and others have had with the Brisbane core temps. I can think of a few things:

1. Manufacturers aren't concentrating on their AMD products and pushing the Intel side. While I understand why, it's still bad business to put customers of the "other" brand on the back burner.

2. These companies don't have the staffing to support writing BIOS' for all of their products.

3. AMD hasn't provided the support needed (the most unlikely since it would be stupid, and the fact that other manufacturers have succeeded).

I really hope this is solved. I have a Biostar T-Force 7025 and an Abit NF-M2 nView I'd like to use.
 
While I'm running an EVGA mobo, their support has stated that a BIOS will be available, and word is, January its coming.

Now, even though it would be nice, and its probably only because of Phenom, the current bios on the nv590 SLI from evga doesn't even offer full compatibility to the 5000BE, 6000, 6400's.
 
Version_3 said:
While I'm running an EVGA mobo, their support has stated that a BIOS will be available, and word is, January its coming.

Now, even though it would be nice, and its probably only because of Phenom, the current bios on the nv590 SLI from evga doesn't even offer full compatibility to the 5000BE, 6000, 6400's.
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Yeah it's kind of lame, but no complaints when I'm already sitting at 3.2GHz :D

Here's hoping their coders are back from their vacations by now. Work faster!
 
pxc said:
I read that article this morning. The one thing that was briefly mentioned/speculated is that AMD probably isn't working much with motherboard vendors to get Phenom support. Stretched too thin comes to mind, launch disaster probably isn't too far out either.
Click to expand...


I know this is,far,too much of a generelization,but my GOD!! They have near 20 thousand damn employee's,and yet seemingly cannot get thier shit together,to do even this much to support thier own damn chips !? I find this hard to beleive. :eek: Still something stinks.

The way some reviewers had mentioned in the initial reviews,how AMD 'convinced' ,three mobo makers to build 790 boards.... I mean you'd think they'd want to build them,be happy to support,and partner with AMD,a new architecure like the Phenom. :confused:

I would love to know how much of a battle it was,over the Spring and Summer, to get Asus and MSI and Gigabyte to do what little they have done. :eek:
 
Assuming AMD makes it, I wouldnt be surprised that if in 10 years the next sector they decide to branch out into would be motherboard manufacturing. Then again this is assuming that the issue at hand is the motherboard companies and not AMD itself.
 
It is a bios issue, one that the mobo makers could fix, and many of them most likely will in the next month or two or sooner. This has happened b4, for both intel and amd. Sometimes a die shrink or even a higher multiplier on a new cpu have not been supported out of the box by certain existing mobos that should be compatible. A little bit of time goes by and a bios update comes along to fix the oversight.
 
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