Apparently, the Phenom 9550 and 9650 are the ones to wait for --- BTW DDR3 support will only be available on AMD in a year's time or more...

Interestingly, the Phenom is actually AM3 compatible

So, if you get a Phenom you will be able to use it with the future AM3 motherboards, and therefore to use these CPUs with DDR3 RAM modules

JabbaPapa wrote:

Apparently, the Phenom 9550 and 9650 are the ones to wait for --- BTW DDR3 support will only be available on AMD in a year's time or more...

Hehe, I can wait but there will always something coming out just around the corner. Maybe when the new chips come out, this current AM2+ chip will be a lot cheaper and maybe Intel will reduce their price too. I can't afford bleeding edge stuff, I'm pretty sure DDR3 RAM will be expensive compared to the really cheap DDR2s that we have now.

Well, I've just purchased my AM2+ mobo, and it's a sweet one.

It's the Asus M3A

It's not a hardcore gamer's rig, as I am not a hardcore gamer ; rather it's a mid-range all-purpose mobo with space for a single PCIex graphics card (got myself a GeForce 8500 couple months back).

Still supports floppy drives and has one IDE slot, so backwards-compatibility is looking pretty good

Otherwise, the usual 4 SATA slots, the HD Audio, etc etc

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Also supports DDR2 1.066Mhz, but only with a Phenom CPU, and I'm waiting for a few months before getting one of those... anyways, I may wait for the AM3 mobos and wider, cheaper DDR3 availability for my next significant RAM upgrade...

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I guess the nicest thing is that it's clearly compatible with XP, XP x64, 2k3, Vista, because F6 drivers loading using a floppy is possible, unlike some other 2k7-2k8 -era mobos

That's a nice mobo Julian and the price is right too at $100 CDN. Since starting this thread some 7 weeks ago, the price on the 9500 has already dropped from $270 to $230 ncix but tiger direct is still selling them at $270. Graham's prediction is coming true.

Well, I'm still busy "conventionising" my typically unconventional hardware config , but it seems nevertheless that this Asus M3A motherboard is currently optimal for use with Windows XP Professional x64

Just as a quick evaluation of AM2+ motherboards, Phenom notwithstanding, this one includes HD Audio

What is HD Audio ? It's audio using the new drivers model of Vista, so that HD Audio works in Vista but not XP, so that this mobo is XP-incompatible.

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... but it DOES work perfectly well in the XP x64

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Then again, if you love Vista and want full surround 5.1 or 7.1 sound, then the AM2+ might be right up your street

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Regarding Performance, I have an unconventional hardware config, which may affect performance --- nevertheless, inside this current config, Windows NT ie XP x64 is 10% faster on my rig than Vista, and I'm not talking benchmarks here --- I'm talking clock rate.

This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this, and my best theory is that it's because I'm mixing and matching non-identical RAM sticks --- nevertheless the same stable overclock comes in at 2.48 Ghz in XP x64 ; but 2.20 Ghz in Vista, either x86 or x64 ... and BTW, I've managed to get up to 2.6 Ghz in the XP x64, but that the Vista crashes at the equivalent (lower) rate ...

I stress that this is a simple difference of handling by each OS of the same overclock



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Having given the biggest LH/Vista-unfriendly mouthful I've had occasion to in over a year, I must however point out that the configuration repair tools that I have do NOT work in XP x64 (but they do work in Vista), bearing in mind that the rig is inherently XP-incompatible

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Soooooo ---- tentative conclusion, pending a potential resolution of my potential RAM issues : AM2+ quad core now?

If your OS of choice is Windows XP x64, I say Go For It !!!! BUT -- Wait for the non-buggy Phenom chips and non-hindered mobos before the upgrade.

If your OS of choice is XP, "Forget it, you Luddite !!! --- And stick with either your new Intel or your Legacy rig, boyo..."

For Vista, well ... I would wait --- and look for a less buggy version of AM2+ (or what the hey, why not wait for the AM3 ), unless you're in my situation, and simply just can't wait --- and then if you want the budget solution AMD wins hands down, if you want Da Powah solution go to the Intel fans instead, and if you're somewhere in-between like me -------- well, just use your ingenuity

Thanks for 'clarifying' this up for me Julian. I can wait as my current X2 3800 is just fine for me. It's just that I'd like to give this one to the grandkid and go quad. I'll wait until the summer and see what fleshes out. I haven't promised anything yet so no pressure there.

hmmm, I've been having quite anomalous behaviour with this mobo, but I think I have located the source of the primary hardware conflict, which was my IDE controller (a separate PCI card), and since removing it, and starting to run Norton Disk Doctor from the excellent Norton Systemworks 11.0 for Vista on my remaining drives (3x 160GB SATA), system seems to be settling down --- oh, and clock rate is up to 2.47 Ghz in Vista32 as well, up from the strange 2.20 Ghz I was getting

Hoping to get a stable Vista64 later on today

Overclock up to 2.68 Ghz, Vista x64, seems pretty stable

That's +20% so far ; hmmmm, let's see how much higher I can take it ... keep you posted

You doing that with the 9500 Julian?