Any chance of Steamroller NOT working on AM3+ boards?

Discussion in 'Processors and motherboards AMD' started by DSparil, May 27, 2013.

  1. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    Any chance of Steamroller NOT working on some AM3+ boards?

    This thread may not garnish many replies because its not a well known topic, but I have seen rumors and read instances of Piledriver "not working" on some older AM3+ socket boards. Now I dont know if this is because of user error, or a failure to flash to the latest BIOS but never the less, you will see reports of this on the net.

    My concern is, has anyone here had this experience and if so, one would be led to believe Steamroller could be even worse as far as dated AM3+ board support goes! You can see I am running an earlier ASUS M5A97 board, not revision 2. The last thing I would want is to hold out for Steamroller and find out that I can't run it for some strange reason, even after a BIOS update.

    Any info or leads on this topic would be appreciated :infinity:
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2013
  2. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    My old ASUS M3A AM2+ board doesn't technically support Phenom II (never had a BIOS revision that had official Phenom II support) yet it ran my Phenom II 810 beautifully before I went Intel. Sometimes even if it's not officially supported, it will still work.

    However, to have guaranteed support, always check the CPU Supported List that every motherboard comes with. There could be a chance that Steamroller won't work on current boards but AMD has been pretty adamant on not constantly switching sockets unlike Intel.

    Your ASUS M5A97 supports Piledriver through the 1605 UEFI update. Just check back when Steamroller-based FX CPUs come out. There's a chance that they're not supported not due to AMD but your board manufacturer for not releasing an update for your motherboard.

    deltatux
     
  3. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    ^ Thanks Delta, you make some good points. You are right on the issue mainly being mobo manufacturers not releasing BIOS updates to support the new hardware. I guess I can just hold onto hope that ASUS will continue to support their M5A97 r2 board, because I believe BIOS updates for those and for the first model would be backwards compatible. Would they not? In other words, if they only release further updates for the r2, I think I could use them for my board as well.

    I'll hold out and see. Worst case scenario is I cannot get a proper update for Steamroller and will have to settle for a high end Piledriver like an 8320.
     
  4. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    R2 may have used components that R1 didn't have. You can't assume that R2 UEFI will work with R1 or that they will update for R1 either. Do not attempt to apply R2 UEFI revisions to R1 board. It's like with Gigabyte boards, you can't apply UEFI revisions for rev1.1 to rev1.0 boards even though they have the same model number without risking frying the board since they likely have changed something in the motherboard to make that distinction. I've had a friend who fried his board doing so.

    deltatux
     

  5. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Some boards are not fully BD/PD compatible because they are simply old chipsets with a new AM3+ socket slapped on.

    They don't have dual power plane/2600mhz HT/APM/HPC/C6 etc etc.....
     
  6. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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  7. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    Ye, a good chunk of the earlier boards had 890GX and 890FX chipsets be fitted with AM3+ sockets. Probably to offset any initial chipset shortage they may have had. What's been kinda disturbing is that motherboard manufacturers have been producing less AMD boards lately, especially AM3+ ones.

    deltatux
     
  8. BLEH!

    BLEH! Ancient Guru

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    Were there not rumours of AMD doing an Intel and sticking the NB in the next generation of FX chips?
     
  9. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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  10. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    Thats what worries me. Why would ASUS release a 2.0 so quickly after the first, and whos to say they will continue to support the latter? I have scoured the web and cannot find out the differences between the second revision and mine, and why they even bothered to release such a board. Its almost like they screwed up the first one and went "oops, better release a revision"! I have read nothing but good reviews on my board though and its been a performer thus far...

    That is some sh!t. Its like a Toyota Corolla with a Maserati shell slapped on and they call it a Maserati.
     

  11. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Why didn't you compare the boards on ASUS website? http://www.asus.com/au/Compare/

    Btw R1 can't be flashed with R2 BIOS because they have different size flash ROM.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2013
  12. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    ^ haha, forgot all about that :eyes:

    They look virtually the same. The R2 just touts Windows 8 support and some additional BIOS features, with some stuff physically moved around the board a bit. Now I will just hold onto hope that they release new BIOS updates for both of them. I will probably pick up a Steamroller 6 or 8 core when they are released.
     
  13. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    AMD did commit themselves to socket AM3+ through 2014 so I doubt that'll be why. Though, I'd be happy if they did as the northbridge is pretty much no longer needed these days as they could be integrated into the CPU itself. However, that may conflict with AMD's server market, FX chips are just the cutdown consumer server chips. While Intel designed their LGA1155 chips as mobile chips first and then scale them up as desktop chips. Different design philosophy.

    I think after 2014, AMD might follow Intel and expand their APU roles to cover the enthusiast market and then the server market would be by itself.

    deltatux
     
  14. BLEH!

    BLEH! Ancient Guru

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    Seems reasonable. I do look forward to what Steamroller can bring.
     
  15. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    AMD says it will address the L3 cache latency problem with Steamroller....it's pretty bad atm....worse than Phenom II :3eyes:
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2013

  16. deltatux

    deltatux Guest

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    8 MB of 64-way set associative cache may be the problem lol. Phenom II had 6 MB of 48-way set associative cache and Ivy Bridge (for the 3570K) has 6 MB 12-way set associative cache or 8 MB of 16-way set associative cache. The lower the better (though it means more cache misses). In order to counteract the lower set associativity, you tend to put more cache space.

    EDIT: Some bad news:
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/6201/amd-details-its-3rd-gen-steamroller-architecture/2

    deltatux
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2013
  17. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Lol guess I was wrong. Dunno how I misread that :p

    Here's a comparison of my FX & Phenom II fwiw...... 2600mhz vs 2800mhz CPU/NB.

    [​IMG]

    No wonder HT speed has little impact. Even raising mine to 3Ghz made no difference in benchmark results. lol 2400 ram is a waste.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2013
  18. -Tj-

    -Tj- Ancient Guru

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    Some early SteamRoller FX9650 leaks, could be fake though. But atm it looks quite promising

    http://amdfx.blogspot.ca/2013/05/amd-steamroller-fx-9650-45-ghz-48-ghz.html
     
  19. Pill Monster

    Pill Monster Banned

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    Wow already...? I didn't expect to see any leaks till later this year....that's good news.



    Edit:
    OK well we all know this is a load of bollocks because if these numbers were real it would mean an ~80% performance increase over 2 generation.
    PD had 20% improvement over BD at the MOST ...and that's being generous.

    I think Steamroller will be real competition for Haswell, but maybe not that much...lol

    Btw the source info the blogger used was a VR Zone article dated August 2012. :p
    http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-pus...ullish-about-performance-increases/17088.html
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2013
  20. DSparil

    DSparil Guest

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    I don't see this as a huge issue at all. As long as AMD delivers, or at least comes close to delivering on the % performance boost and IPC over BD and PD, I don't think virtually anyone's going to give a rats turd about some cache latency. People are eating up Vishera, loving the 6 and 8 core chips, and if Steamroller delivers on its promise it will be no different.

    I too look forward to what Steamroller will bring. Even if it flops a bit and only improves on Piledriver 15% or so, it will be a significant jump from Bulldozer!
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2013

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