JETWAY AM3 board 940 pins available now

[kenofstephen]

if that one pin hole is the only difference then a AM2+ chip should fit making the Jetway still possible. Of course, that would depend on what that extra pin does

cut it?

[informal]

Interesting info . The way i see it,those JetWay boards are the same AM2+ ones like somebody already noticed.They provided the BIOS support for AM3 chips and re-branded these as AM3(ready). We have already seen ECS DDR3 AM3 board,the "true" AM3 board that has AM3 socket+DDR3 memory support.

As for pins(or holes) in AM2+/AM3 sockets,looks like AM2+ could fit in AM3 boards.Phenom II AM2+ version,should be essentially the same as Phenom II AM3 version ,only having the extra pin(or two if AM3 is 938 pin).AM3 socket on the other hand seems to have 940 or 941 "holes".

[Brother Esau]

Whats the Point? I thought AM3 was drop in compatible with existing AM2+ Boards

[Oliverda]

I have the sample board,
I took a picture to show the extra pin hole of the socket.

Thanks for the pic. If it's true we can physically put AM2/AM2+ CPUs into AM3. If I'm not mistaken the coming AM3 Phenoms CPUs will only have 938 pins so I don't understand why the socket should have 941 pins. I want 939!

Whats the Point? I thought AM3 was drop in compatible with existing AM2+ Boards

"AM3 SOCKET has one MORE pin reserved for future purpose. The coming AM3 CPU won't utilize that pin so it can plug into the AM2/AM2+ board.

But that extra pin will be utilized some days later I believe, so if that's the case, the future AM3 CPU may not be able to plug into a board with AM2 SOCKET."

So I think he means Bulldozer and company under "future AM3 CPUs".

[informal]

Whats the Point? I thought AM3 was drop in compatible with existing AM2+ Boards

Brother,backward compatibility was never an issue .AM3 Phenom II chips should and will work in AM2 and AM2+ boards,provided BIOS support is there.
The other way around was the thing i was talking about:AM2+ Phenom II chips (supposedly DDR2 only) working in DDR3 AM3 boards which would mean AM2+ Phenom IIs are identical, from the IMC point of view,to the AM3 ones.The only difference would be a pin count between the two,TSI thermal interface and serial VIDs.

[nanohead]

it's Jetway.
what do you expect?

Now that is just a brilliant comment....

[Halk]

This is all rather confusing :P

I was under the impression that AM3 CPUs worked in AM2+ (with DDR2) and AM3 (with DDR3) boards. So a board which is AM3 but supports DDR2 would be little different to an AM2+ board, except it'd possibly have an AM3 chipset if there's an advantage over AM2+ chipsets. Of course I'm not entirely sure what CPUs will work in what board. And I'd suggest nobody take a word of what I say as useful information :P

[N19h7m4r3]

Haha Halk, lets just wait and see what happens

[informal]

This is all rather confusing :P

I was under the impression that AM3 CPUs worked in AM2+ (with DDR2) and AM3 (with DDR3) boards. So a board which is AM3 but supports DDR2 would be little different to an AM2+ board, except it'd possibly have an AM3 chipset if there's an advantage over AM2+ chipsets. Of course I'm not entirely sure what CPUs will work in what board. And I'd suggest nobody take a word of what I say as useful information :P

Halk read my post above .

[aGeoM]

Hi guys

Well, since B2 Phenoms, Everest reports that K10s IMC support DDR3 800 mems.

My "feeling" is a "Phenom I" working at DDR3 with an AM3+DDR3 board.
But... I can be wrong.

I'm just waiting for the hardware to be out, and then we will see.

[EvilBlitz]

Well, looks like I was right. I stated in a previous post that AM2+ chips can go in AM3 boards and was shot down by roofsniper and someone else.

I always remembered seeing a slide from an AMD presentation with a picture of the 3 sockets AM2, AM2+ and AM3 next to each other. It had arrows point from one socket to another for each CPU showing which they could go in. I can't find it anymore which is rather annoying.
On that diagram as I remember it, AM2+ cpus were the only one that could go in ALL 3 sockets. Though it did NOT mention anything about if the AM3 board had to have DDR2 for a AM2+ chip to go in it.
On the slide it said that AM3 could NOT go in AM2 boards as they did not support the split voltage plane and it is something that has to be engineered into the board when making it, it is not a simple bios update. It was the difference that made a board AM2+ and not AM2.
However all 3 sockets were otherwise the same electrically and physically it stated.
I imagine that IF the specs were available early enough which is possible, then mobo makers could have made AM2 boards with support for the split voltage plane then they could take AM3 cpus.(Though this effectively really makes them AM2+ boards even if they were marketed as AM2)
Also, if AM3 boards can have DDR2 or IF(unlikely?) AM2+ cpus can go in a AM3 DDR3 board, what the hell is the difference that makes a board AM3?

P.S ALL K10 cpus have always had the support for DDR3 right from the very 1st samples AFAIK. I think AMD did that just in case DDR3 caught on really fast and needed to make the transition to DDR3 earlier since it is intel that generally drives the market and brings the volume for prices to drop down.
On that note, has AMD ever supported a new memory format before intel? Cant think of any instances off the top of my head.

P.P.S informal could you post a link or something to any AM2 board supporting AM3 cpus? As I was always under the impression the mobo needed the split plane voltage requirement engineered into the board. I really wish we could just get some AMD guy, even a PR guy just come in and post or something and clear it all up.