Apparently, AMD Bulldozer CPUs will be known as "FX" for short.

ASUS and MSI are showing their 9xx chipset (the Bulldozer chipset) AM3+ FX (Bulldozer) motherboards. Apparently, these AM3+ motherboards will also run Phenom II and older CPUs. As usual, AMD stuff works together over generations thereby saving some cash for the cost conscious -- some Phenom II 8xx AM3 chipset motherboards will run Bulldozer as well with a BIOS update (we all know Intel usually requires a new MB for a new CPU type).

ASUS 900 Series Motherboards

MSI 990FX Motherboard

I like that the high end ASUS has more SATA ports than has been the norm -- mostly SATA 6.0Gb. Optical drives use up an SATA port now, and I have lots of hard drives to plug into them. On the other hand, I'm usually too cheap to buy a highest end 990FX type board. I'll have to see what is being offered at what price the day I place the order.


In other news, the new AMD Fusion CPU/GPU (quad-core Athlon CPU with an entry-level, 400 shader gamer GPU on the CPU chip) were benchmarked and actually get good 3DMark scores. Something to look for in a gaming notebook, dirt cheap desktop, or Home Theater PC.

June is "billed" as AMD month, and, so far, the "leaks" indicate "its on".

Prior to Phenom/AM2, didnt AMD get ripped for constantly changing Socket Layouts as well, why they praised Intel for staying with LGA775.




No bottlenecks between GPU and CPU being on the same Die....





I might end up splurging for the best mobo i can get my hands on....

I cant decide between the MSI or the ASUS right now, I'd have to see the competition and prices.

ECS Black Series A990FXM motherboard for AMD Bulldozer:

ECS AMD Bulldozer Motherboard

that Black and Grey Scheme is b-e-a-utiful

ECS = low end junk. Their Quality Control station is over the PACKAGING Dept, not the PRODUCTION Dept.
You could get one that lasts for years, or DOA when you push the power button. Their worst issue IMO was their BIOS, as it was not flexible at all. Usually NO options that you could change other than date/time, and on/off.

are they better than FoxxCon??

ECS is the one mobo manufacturer I would stay away from. Pure junk.

I'm an ASUS and Gigabyte fan, personally. That's mainly because I think they "follow up" on BIOS updates and high performance tweaks -- so the MB will not "go out of date" as fast as some others. For example, ASUS recent BIOS allows several ASUS 8xx chipset motherboards to become A3+ and run the Bulldozer.

I do like the subdued color schemes being shown as a change from the brighter colors lately.

Here's Gigabyte's 990FX -- 6 PCIe 16x slots. Supports AMD Crossfire 4x and Nvidia SLI 4x (that's four GPUs, potentially, they say). Has extra power plug to supply GPUs via PCIe (as well as the now normal GPU power connectors).

Gigabyte 990FX AM3+ for AMD Bulldozer

Between AMD and E3, im gonna be all over the place...

ps, Im actually packing now for my Flight to LA. I was invited to Goto E3 with a group from Microsoft.
I've already been told anything I see or report on belongs to MS. yada yada yada.. basically an Email/Verbal NDA.

Hopefully AMD is at E3.

More and more 9xx AM3+ motherboards showing up. They run both Phenom II and Bulldozer.

The 9xx circuits are virtually the 8xx renamed. So, they don't provide an enhancement for Phenom II -- unless you happen to want a new motherboard. They do provide guaranteed compatibly with Bulldozer and a couple Bulldozer-only features regarding power use and frequency (of course, I don't know how those work).

As noted elsewhere, Bulldozer is delayed until late July (or longer ???). Working on stepping B2 -- B0 and B1 did not perform as well as hoped. Same old, same old. At least, they have not released a substandard product.

Unless something big happens in motherboards, I probably won't be updating this until late July.

Interesting article. As usual, i7-2600K 3.3GHz equals or beats Phenom II X6 1090 at 3.2Gz.

But, both give excellent FPS numbers in the tested games. Most of the FPS numbers are nearly equal. One would not "see" a difference -- only "measure" one (note that above 60FPS does not even display on most LCD monitors).

The Phenom II X6 1090 is only $170 today; whereas, the i7-2600K is $315.

Thing is, I have an X6 1090 -- I want a Bulldozer Hope its worth the wait.

By the way, I don't expect to "see" a difference with Bulldozer, either -- because once one gets a Phenom II at 3.2GHz and at least 3 cores (according to some test reports), there is no longer a "visible" difference when using the same GPU (as the above article confirmed). Of course, there are rare exceptions to every rule

in games, no..

In Media trans-coding and all that stuff, yes.
I'll Prolly start building the guts soon (new case, psu, Mobo and Ram) drop a X6 in it for now, and a 6950 flashed to 6970.

ASRock 990FX Extreme4 motherboard: @ Swe Clockers

As SkateZilla linked to it: ASUS Sabertooth 990FX vs. MSI 990FXA-GD80 @ TechReport, tested with Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2GHz

Asus M5A99X Evo @ TechConnect

ASUS Crosshair V press shots @ TC

Apparently there's also an ASUS M5A99 Evo.

Gigabyte's GA-990FXA-UD7 get's beautiful...@ TechConnect).

The slides are available too, which show a lot of the numerous features.

Gigabyte's UD5, one less SLI/CF card option is still 3 teamed up graphics cards. GA-990FXA UD5 board @ TechConnect

Yummy looking MBs. Especially the Gigabytes.

Hrm, I just caught an interesting line on the GigaByte Review (The One with the Slides)



I didnt know that.

It looks like Bulldozer isn't going to be available until late summer or fall. Which explains why the new chipset has been released but without the new CPU to go in it.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display...processors.html

R

grab phenomII x6's now while they are still on sale.

Worth mentioning:

Don't own it so can't guarantee it, but this looks like a real good Phenom II motherboard that also supports Bulldozer (so plug one in someday for a cheap upgrade). Only $118 delivered.

Has AM3+ (Bulldozer) black socket -- that also runs all the Phenom II.

UEFI instead of traditional BIOS. UEFI is "up to the minute" as only a few MB have it. Supports huge hard drives and is much easier than BIOS to program or overclock -- a graphical interface rather than old fashioned keystroke interface as in BIOS.

Has the other bells too -- 6Gb SATA, USB 3.0, etc.

ASRock 890GX Pro 3 MB

With only HyperTransport 3.0, and So the 5.2GT/sec Limit, which may cause 8 Core Bulldozers to not function correctly or at all, 8 cores requires HyperTransport 3.1 w/ 6.4GT/sec.

Awesome deal for PhenomII Owners though...

I agree, that may be an issue. We really can't be sure until Bulldozer is being sold. The "black" socket, AM3+ nomenclature, and ASRock claim of "8 core" support puts the monkey on ASRock to make sure that it does support Bulldozer correctly (not on you or me ).

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ is "on the shelf" now (its been sold out twice at Newegg during the last few days}. Its selling for around $200 -- and, as an elite motherboard, has pretty much everything and is up to date. More SATA connectors, graphical "BIOS". Of course, it supports Phenom II CPUs too.

I'm seriously considering buying a "high end" motherboard (for a change). Reason being, I think the 8 Core Bulldozer will be all the CPU I will need for a couple years or more*. So, I might as well splurge on the motherboard. Considering the ASUS Sabertooth seriously. However, the Gigabyte offering (written up at its site) looks tempting too -- I like the dual BIOS concept as I may be doing a lot of flashing if I keep it a long time. So, I'll wait until the Gigabyte also "on the shelf" before deciding -- and I may even wait longer depending on developments.

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Motherboard $200 + Shipping

I note its available other places too.


* Actually, my Phenom II is all I'll need for the next couple years. The new games I own do not seem to push the 6 core CPU or the RAM -- based on the AMD System Monitor software. However, the GPUs do get a workout (e.g. Witcher 2 runs both HD5870 at a consistent 95+ percent). So, I'll be buying Bulldozer for the fun of it.

P.S. Hmmmmm.... Now not "out of stock" -- rather "deactivated" and may not be restocked. Does that mean it has a problem -- or are they waiting for Bulldozer in a couple months???

AMD Bulldozers were at E3: (No thats not me, Pic was taken from AMD's Facebook)

I "pulled the trigger" -- I'm going to be an early adopter of the ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI "BIOS" -- linked above.

Came back into stock -- and I want to get going on my new system (using a Phenom II X6 in place of Bulldozer for now). Want to test the components I already have in-hand before the clock runs out on the 30 day return privileges.

I hope I don't regret this. However, it has everything I want (including UEFI "BIOS") and the test reports were very laudatory using Phenom II. On the other hand, no test reports using Bulldozer. We'll see how things turn out

im gonna wait till octoberish, got too many things to buy for hockey right now, every payday im on the icehockeywarehouse site purchasing $1200 of gear for me and my brother.

by then there should be some feedback so i can make easy decisions.

My poor AthlonX2 will finally be moved to a backup.

Im not sure if i want to Move my 10-Bit HDMI Capture Card to my new system or not, as I can prolly run an HDMI Line from whatever AMD card I get to the HDMI Input on the HD card in the backup system and record gameplay without fraps.

definitely gonna get an all AMD platform this fall though.

That's being totally sensible I would sure tell anyone else to wait and see how things turn out.

I "bought into" the AMD "promised" release date of June 7. So, I started to buy components early -- 2 or 3 months too early as it turns out -- silly me

For anyone interested in the ASUS I ordered, here is the ASUS product page:

ASUS Sabertooth AMD 990FX Product Page

It is no significant improvement over the 890FX and 890GX ASUS products for Phenom II. It comes into its own when running an AMD Bulldozer -- at least, on paper And, it has nearly every "bell and whistle" one could want -- on paper. By October, there will be plenty of cheaper alternatives with similar Bulldozer performance (but not every bell and whistle).

A couple more 990FX motherboards now available. Probably, the high prices for the year. So, waiting for reviews and lower prices makes sense for anyone who is not a Fan who's been waiting for the next big thing from AMD.

ASUS highest end to date -- has better sound than the Sabertooth I bought and some advantages for those who play games on-line:

ASUS Crosshair V $240

MSI price competitor to the ASUS Sabertooth I bought:

MSI 990FXA $195

No Sabertooth buyer's remorse yet -- happy with my decision relative to these two -- on paper

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304665904576383914221027704.html#ixzz1PCM4Ohvn