AMD Motherboards: Processor Support
by Wesley Fink on June 28, 2005 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Updating DC BIOS & Revision E Memory
Updating BIOS for Dual Core with an x2 ProcessorThis brings up the nagging question that is always asked when BIOS upgrades are required for certain CPUs. What do you do if you have a board that needs a BIOS upgrade for dual-core and you only have a dual-core chip? We asked AMD this question and got the following reply:
"If the BIOS you are working with (original BIOS in the board) supports a rev E single core (AKA... 90nm as most new boards should), it will allow you to flash the BIOS to a BIOS that supports rev E dual core. In my experience, a DC processor with single core rev E support will run fine, but only as a single core. If the BIOS doesn't support rev E (In other words, you may have a good board, but the BIOS is pretty old), you will likely need to install a pre-rev E (AKA-130nm) AMD processor to flash the BIOS.
I'm told that if a customer can't flash their BIOS, many mobo vendors will mail out the BIOS chip to them (if it's not soldered down, obviously)"
Revision E Memory Controller PLUS 4 Dimms =
The memory timings, in the end, are controlled by the memory controller, and in the case of Athlon 64 that memory controller is on the processor. We had already been told by AMD that Rev. E would feature a new and improved memory controller. In fact for months prior to the release of the new Revision E Athlon 64 processors (Venice, San Diego, Toledo) we have been hearing that the new memory controller on the Rev. E chips would allow the use of 4 dimms at the faster 1T Command Rate.
With the 4200+ x2 in our DFI LANParty nForce4 SLI test bed with a working dual-core BIOS (6/23/05) we tried 4 matched PC3200 OCZ Platinum Rev. 2 dimms. Four double-sided (or double- bank) dimms STILL require a 2T command rate in this configuration, so the limitation stills remains. Four DS Dimms in a Rev. E still need a Command Rate of 2.
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Den - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
Both the ASUS A8N-E and A8V support the E4 (in addition to E3 and E6) stepping according to AMD's page though your article just lists E3 and E6. See cut and paste below...Asus
A8N-E
# 2.0 ATX nVidia nForce4 Ultra Cool'n'Quiet
# PCIe™
# Supports up to processor stepping: E3
# Supports up to processor stepping: E4
# Supports up to processor stepping: E6
xeizo - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
You forgot to mention in the text that there are indeed older K8T800Pro/agp-boards that supports dual-core, in fact they are on your list, like the Abit AV8 2.0 and the Soltek K8TPro-939 ....Olaf van der Spek - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
> Date: June 28th, 2005> Topic: Business
> Manufacturer: 3Com/U.S. Robotics
> Author: Wesley Fink
Did someone do too much copy/pasting?
BTW, _new isn't a valid target for an anchor.
Houdani - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
Is there any value with including which SFF designs are X2 / Rev E compatible?I'm fairly certain the Shuttle SN25P does support the X2.
Aikouka - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
Just as a note, Gigabyte released the BIOS update for the GA-K8N Ultra-9 nForce 4 motherboard today.Wesley Fink - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
$6 - While AMD did not officially support DDR400 with 4 dimms on earlier Athlon 64, the fact is almost every board we tested ran fine at DDR400 with 4 dimms. Check our earlier roundups. The boards that would NOT do DDR400 with 4 dimms stood out, since most would. Also 2x1GB has never been a problem at 1T in our testing.#7 and others - It's good to hear there are new BIOS' to support x2 on nForce3. The websites did not list any nF3 with x2 support when we suveyed the last few days, but readers with nF3 boards will be happy to know some are becoming available.
#10 AMD says that if the board supports Rev. E the X2 chip should run in single core mode to allow BIOS update. If the board does NOT support Rev. E chips you will need a new BIOS chip or an earlier A64 to flash.
arswihart - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
this is what one user that I know of reported when he installed an X2 in an Epox 9nda3+ (NF3) mobo.elpheer - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
Nice article.I'm unclear on one particular point though; am I correct in assuming that if you mount an X2 on a motherboad that has an outdated BIOS, it will successfully boot on just 1 core, thus allowing an OS installation?
This in-case there is no immediate second hand PC available to make a BIOS disk to flash..
bigtoe36 - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
#62x1gig dimms have been doing 1T for a while already with winchester and Clawhammer proving easliy capable of supporting the feature, it was however not guaranteed.
4x double sided will always be 2t in my books, but E die seems to allow some good overclocking so much of the speed can be clawed back.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, June 28, 2005 - link
#5 - You're Correct and this has been updated.