Final clarification regarding Conroe MB support

[freecableguy]

Still much speculation and rumor running around regarding Conroe support for current 975x motherboards. Let me take a moment to clear the air for all, once and final. Listen up!

1) Boards based on the 975X chipset, available for sale right now, are NOT Conroe compatable, nor will they be with just a BIOS update. The reason why is that the current boards all have a PWM buck controller that does not support VRM revision 11. At the very least a small revision to the board will need to be made along with a new BIOS. End of story.

2) 965X boards, available for sale soon, will all be Conroe compatable. These are being designed to support Conroe from release. They will most likely arrive in market before comparable 975X boards and well before Conroe is available to the public.

3) If you plan on running Conroe later this summer. DO NOT buy a 975X board now with the hope that a BIOS will be made that makes your Conroe drop-in compatable. Now, if you are buying a 975X board for other reasons, knock yourself out.

I am providing this information to the public so that you don't all buy boards and 2-3 months from now cry your eyes out when you find that you need to buy yet another board.

Let the rumors stop!

-FCG

[death metal]

Crystal Clear

[Kesnel]

Thanks for the clarification, just want I've been looking for amidst all the rumours that have been circulating recently.

[FischOderAal]

yeah ^^

you've written "965X boards, available for sale soon". but when goddamit!

I NEED SUCH A BOARD *cry*

I've done intensive google search and found nothing about the release dates of e.g. the Asus P5B or Albatron PXP965 (i'm really interested in them ^^).

[TyCanadian]

Thanks a lot FCG, I for one appreciate this concise summary of all the garbled and sometimes conflicting information floating around.

I don't expect anyone to know for certain, but is there any indication of specific dates the 965X boards might show up in stores? I'm buying a new PC soon and I'd love to have Conroe support, but I can't wait too long.

Thanks again for the clarity!

[Pokyoky]

While this is crystal clear i am a little slow and need some clarification
Are you saying that the revision 304 board will not support conroe?
Or are we still unclarified on that?

[Eliminator1]

thnx 4 the info... very important...

[SluRRR]

FCG

The ONLY reason I would buy the rev 304 D975XBX is for Conroe. Should I hold off?

[ivo0613]

Sorry for a dumb question. Do 965X boards support PD920/930?
thanks!

[FischOderAal]

Sorry for a dumb question. Do 965X boards support PD920/930?
thanks!

sure they will. why should they bring out a board which only supports Conroe before the Conroe is released

[Burner27]

While this is crystal clear i am a little slow and need some clarification
Are you saying that the revision 304 board will not support conroe?
Or are we still unclarified on that?

I would like to know this too since I have been put on a list in another thread to purchase a rev 304 board.

[irev210]

I would like to know this too since I have been put on a list in another thread to purchase a rev 304 board.

it should, intel docs say that the rev304 makes the changes to support conroe.

[JimboJoe43]

it should, intel docs say that the rev304 makes the changes to support conroe.

It actually says "support for future architecture" nothing is ever mentioned about conroe. There was some thought in the other thread that this could just mean support for the forthcoming 965EE as this processor is now supported on this motherboard via the new bios update (618).

I think the point of this thread is to stop the speculation and to serve as a warning for would be conroe buyers that rev304 does not support conroe.

I am looking forward to purchasing a conroe as well but it looks like we need to wait for the 965 boards or updated 975's.

[EraserFlying]

So, 975 has overall higher performece than 965? because 975 is a bigger number than 965? and How about the 985? much better than 965? what is the difference between the 965 and 985, thanks

[JimboJoe43]

This is great

One person tries to end rumours about conroe's working on the latest intel board and another person starts rumours about 985 chipsets.

http://www.intel.com/cd/pvp/bc06/asm...elop/index.htm

If you go look at the plan for the upcoming conroe support it shows "965X Express" and "975X Express" chipsets. Nothing about 985, thus I would not worry about any 985 phantom chipsets just yet.

[freecableguy]

965 (mainstream/budget) and 975 (performance) both will support Conroe. The limitation has nothing to do with the BIOS or the chipset, rather the motherboard manufacture's adherance to VRM 11 standards as required by Core Duo desktop models in the LGA775 package.

985 is only a rumor at this point, as well as being logical speculation as the next number in the progression....

[Thorburn]

The 304 revision board does support Conroe. The revisions are specifically for this purpose.

It actually says "support for future architecture" nothing is ever mentioned about conroe. There was some thought in the other thread that this could just mean support for the forthcoming 965EE as this processor is now supported on this motherboard via the new bios update (618).

The 965XE isn't a 'future architecture'. What do you think they are talking about here?

[dpa]

is there a difference between 965 and 975?

[Thorburn]

is there a difference between 965 and 975?

The 965 is a replacement for the 945 chipset.
It features an updated integrated graphics core along with support for iAMT and in Q965 guise fits into the updated Stable Image Platform for the coming year.

Although I don't know any details I'm assuming the relationship will be similar to that of 945 and 955, 975 will feature extra memory pipelining for improved performance and there won't be an 'Extreme' Intel 965 board so on the Intel boards at least no overclocking.

[freecableguy]

Further clarification:

Intel D975XBX (revision 304 and greater) motherboard with latest BIOS ("0618"/1009) supports Conroe:



Timings at stock 533FSB (4-4-4-12) with 1.9v VDDR2. No optimizations. Actual vcore is about 1.175v. So far I have gotten a little lower to 19.028 sec SPI 1M.


EDIT: Let me change one thing that I said in the first post. The Intel Bad Axe board is the only 975X board that has a compatable buck controller.

-FCG

[Durzel]

LOL, lets see everyone jump back in on Sneakys thread.

I think I should get priority on a board given I stayed to the end.

[WildEye]

Ok now i'm tempted to get this board... But I have doubts about warranty etc. Think i'll wait until it shows up way up north. At least i know which board to get for my next machine

EDIT: but then the price is really nice *sigh* what to do...

[Cooper]

FCG how`s that hardmod coming along ? Or it`s just not worth it to loose warranty?

[jmax_oc]

FCG, can you confirm that P5WDG2-WS would be not compatible with Merom although I make a bios update ?

Thanks

[nn_step]

Gotta love Intel... Compatability between boards and CPUs take all the time and energy you have to completely keep track of it...