I have been looking at AM3 boards as I am trying to order my pc parts atm and they are all over £70 (united kingdom) mostly looking at gigabyte but have just realised that the AM2+ boards say AM3 ready. Is it okay to just buy a AM3 ready board as they are only £40 (eg Gigabyte GA-M52L-S3P) to run a AMD Phenom X3 720 and 800Mhz ram. I am on a tight budget untill I get a new job as am unemployed atm.
AM3 boards and AM3 ready?
- Thread starter elliot_c
- Start date
Redbull{wings}
Active Member
As far as I can tell yes an AM3 ready board will run an AM3 processor(the Phenom II x3) by simply updating the bios. The real drawback is that the processor will only run with ddr2 memory and will be bottle-necked. If you can I would suggest saving up for the AM3 board and getting ddr3 ram as it will benefit you more.
Year I have ordered that AM3 board now and a Phenom 720BE but will be using my 800mhz ram untill I find a new job then I will get the best and fastest possible and move to windows 7 or vista 64bit whatever is avalible when i change as I only have 3gb atm because I have seen people saying that vista 32bit only supports 3gb untill you move to 64bit.
bomberboysk
Active Member
Basically:
AM2 boards have a slower max HT than AM2+ boards, limited to ddr2 memory,and are pcie 1.0, depending on chipset and bios can run AM2, AM2+, AM3 cpus.
AM2+ Boards have a max HT higher than am2+, but but lower than AM3. Limited to ddr2 memory,Pcie 2.0, can run AM2, AM2+, and AM3 cpu's depending on bios/chipset.
AM3 Board have a higher max HT than am2+, but can only use ddr3 memory, Pcie 2.0, Can only run AM3 cpu's on these motherboards, as AM2 and AM2+ cpu's lack the on die ddr3 memory controller.
AM2 boards have a slower max HT than AM2+ boards, limited to ddr2 memory,and are pcie 1.0, depending on chipset and bios can run AM2, AM2+, AM3 cpus.
AM2+ Boards have a max HT higher than am2+, but but lower than AM3. Limited to ddr2 memory,Pcie 2.0, can run AM2, AM2+, and AM3 cpu's depending on bios/chipset.
AM3 Board have a higher max HT than am2+, but can only use ddr3 memory, Pcie 2.0, Can only run AM3 cpu's on these motherboards, as AM2 and AM2+ cpu's lack the on die ddr3 memory controller.
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Thats a AM2+ board
AM2 boards have a max HT of 1000/2000 and PCIe 1.0
AM2+ boards have a max HT of 2600/5200 and PCIe 2.0
AM3 boards have a max HT of 2600/5200 and PCIe 2.0
The only difference in AM2+ and AM3 is AM3 boards have 938 pin holes (keeps you from putting in a AM2/+ processor) and DDR3 slots. The max HT is the same between AM2+ and AM3 boards.
bomberboysk
Active Member
Actually AM3 has a max of 3200/6400, just no cpu's run the HT at that speed currently.
Show me a board that does. The fastest HT (processor) right now is 2000/4000 but AM2+ and AM3 (boards) support up to 2600/5200.
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bomberboysk
Active Member
No current boards do afaik, but the max ht of 3200 is in the am3 specifications.
Just messing with ya. What it is, the 700 series chipset just dont support it. AMD is suppost to release the 800 series chipsets that support the higher HT speed. But since they havent released a Phenom over 2000/4000 HT they really dont need it yet.
bomberboysk
Active Member
The M4A78 Pro is am2+, and supports 800mhz ddr2 memory.
Yup, i think by the time 900 chipset comes out(yes i mean 900, my cpu should be fine for another year or so
) and its time for an upgrade for my rig, they should have the quad channel memory and ill prolly switch over to amd. Only reason i went intel on my build is when i built it last year, pII wasnt out.
bomberboysk
Active Member
Hmm, im betting its one of those "AM3/AM2+/AM2" kinda things they try to advertise. Basically it means it will run an AM3 cpu. The M4A78 is an am2+ board though.I am really confused now, Asus says this is a AM3 board (Not AM2+) but they also say it uses DDR2 memory at these speeds 1200(O.C.)/1066/800/667. You lot are confusing me now! Well its all ordered so I hope so.....
Okay, I trust you because im not that great with all this, its worrying being a newbie and buying all the parts seperate to build my system as best as possible and as cheap as possible and getting shocks worrying its not going to work and I cant afford to buy a pc like a dell because they are so expensive for similar spec to what I have built.
bomberboysk
Active Member
Basically, if it has DDR2 its am2 or am2+, if its ddr3, its am3.
I am really confused now, Asus says this is a AM3 board (Not AM2+) but they also say it uses DDR2 memory at these speeds 1200(O.C.)/1066/800/667. You lot are confusing me now! Well its all ordered so I hope so
Like bomber said, its a AM2+ board that uses DDR2, but supports AM3 processors.
AM3 processors have both, a DDR2 and DDR3 memory controllers so they will work on AM2+ and AM3 boards.
So a AM2+ board with the correct bios can support/run a AM3 processor.
A true AM3 board has DDR3 slots.