Motherboards that work with Kentsfield

Lately the introduction of every new Intel Socket 775 processor has required a new round of motherboards. With Kentsfield scheduled for a November release, a question on the minds of many readers is whether Kentsfield will work in the current Socket 775 favorites. Will a BIOS upgrade provide the support needed for Kentsfield or will we need new board upgrades to accommodate the new quad-core processor?

We asked Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, ECS, DFI, Abit, and Biostar which of their boards would support Kentsfield, and which BIOS revision was required for that support. We received replies from everyone, but DFI said it would be a few days until they could provide this information.

The rest of the companies provided a list of Kentsfield compatible motherboards, but some of the lists raised more questions than they answered. Some of the models will be familiar to readers as boards they can currently buy, but look very closely. Some of the Kentsfield compatible boards will be new revisions that will be released in October/November.

We will add the additional information when it is available to keep the list as up to date as possible, but for now this is the best information we could find on what works with Kentsfield. Keep in mind that Kentsfield is a high-end CPU, even more so than Core 2 Duo, and as a result the available boards supporting Kentsfield are definitely slanted to the high-end of Socket 775 motherboard offerings.


Abit

Abit advised that four models currently support Kentsfield:
AW9D-MAX AW9D AB9 PRO AB9

Asus

Asus provided complete details on their models and BIOS revisions that would support Kentsfield.

ASUS Kentsfield Compatible Motherboards
Model	Platform	BIOS Revision
P5WDG2 WS Professional	Intel 975X/ICH7R	BIOS 0307 and later
P5W64 WS Professional	Intel 975X/ICH7R	BIOS 0116 and later
P5W DH Deluxe	Intel 975X/ICH7R	BIOS 1403 and later
P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP	Intel P965/ICH8R	BIOS 0709 and later
P5B Deluxe	Intel P965/ICH8R	BIOS 0709 and later
P5B	Intel P965/ICH8	BIOS to be released
P5B-E	Intel P965/ICH8R	BIOS to be released
P5B-E Plus (No US Model)	Intel P965/ICH8R	BIOS 0108 and later
P5B-V	Intel G965/ICH8	BIOS 0403 and later

MSI

Version 2 of the 975X Platinum is also called the MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition. This model, MS-7246, was recently introduced to support Core 2 Duo and is a different model than the older MSI 975X Platinum, which is also called MS-7246, but does not support either Core 2 Duo or Kentsfield.

MSI Kentsfield Compatible Motherboards
Description	Model #	BIOS Revision
975X Platinum V.2	MS-7246	BIOS V7.2 or later
P965 Platinum	MS-7238	BIOS V`1.1 or later
P5N Diamond	MS-7320	NO BIOS Update Needed
P5N Platinum	MS-7350	NO BIOS Update Needed

It appears recent MSI 975X and 965 boards will have no problem supporting Kentsfield Quad Core processors.