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pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!

rscott posted:

Basically every AMD chipset up until the nForce 2 kind of sucked in its own way. Most of VIA's chipsets had lovely memory controller peformance, and most SiS stuff was terrifically unstable.

This. I think I went through three motherboards during the life of my 1.3 Ghz Thunderbird, 2 VIAs and a SiS. The nforce2 board I got with my Athlon XP was a revelation. Yeah the nForce chipsets had their own issues but they were largely minor compared to the other available offerings.

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Alereon
Feb 6, 2004

Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed
College Slice
It kinda pissed me off that the nForce2 was never supported in Vista, I mean I know it was a few years old when Vista launched, but at least there could have been Vista 32-bit drivers like every other chipset manufacturer. After the nForce2 they kind of turned into the Pentium 4-era Intel of chipsets, making monstrosities that used a lot of power (thus REQUIRING a fan) and making motherboard manufacturers buy NF200 PCIe bridge chips to "upgrade" PCIe v1.0 nForce chipsets into PCIe v2.0.

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!
nForce2 was a bit long in the tooth at that point, but a lot of things never got proper Vista support due to Vista being so reviled. My current board is a ~6 year old nForce570 and runs Windows 7 just fine.

Oh god chipset fans, ech. Mine has this sweet passive heatpipe cooler that puts the radiator in the path of the rear case exhaust fan.

PC LOAD LETTER
May 23, 2005
WTF?!

Alereon posted:

The AMD750 (Irongate) chipset was horribly unstable, mostly because it was the first generation chipset and the first one for the platform.
I heard this a lot but I had one of the first Slot A mobo's with this chipset (and a goddamn VIA SB too no less) and it ran like a champ up until a few years ago when one day the capacitors on it suddenly blew. Got it with the case, mobo, and 600Mhz Athlon for around $300 IIRC at Fry's, hell of a deal at the time. I did have a OK PSU in it, and by OK I mean I actually paid $50 or so for one instead of using the free PSU that came with the case which was made by Deer or some poo poo, but the RAM was some suspiciously cheap stuff from a no name vendor off pricewatch or something. Coulda got lucky I guess.



http://www.active-hardware.com/english/reviews/mainboard/sd11.htm

Alereon posted:

By the time of the KT133A the Via chipsets actually made for a pretty reasonable platform, as long as you didn't have a Soundblaster Live! card.
I remember waiting each month for a new version of the 4in1's to fix some weird issue that would pop up with all those VIA boards. Ahh memories.

Stanley Pain
Jun 16, 2001

by Fluffdaddy
This thread is full of nostalgia :allears:

L33t_Kefka
Jul 16, 2000

My 1337 littl3 magic us3r, put 0n this cr0wn, bitch! H4W H4W! I 0wn j00!!!!

Stanley Pain posted:

This thread is full of nostalgia :allears:

Yes, it just makes me miss good old abit motherboards from back in the day.
:sigh:

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!
http://www.active-hardware.com/english/reviews/mainboard/a7n8x.htm

This was the Athlon XP board to have, and it was great. I still have it in my htpc but it's defunct because I dropped my monstrous Zalman heatsink on the chip and cracked the core.

frumpsnake
Jan 30, 2001

The sad part is, he wasn't always evil.
Please. The A7N8X Deluxe version was the board to have.

I still remember my first "onboard graphics" board sighting. My parents needed an upgrade and got talked into an ASUS SP97-V with an SiS chipset and a dirt cheap 6x86MX. That motherfucker was quite possibly the most stable PC they ever had and was in use until 2002, and surprisingly despite the generally poor FPU performance of Cyrix CPUs and questionable SiS chipset, I remember it running Virtua Cop 2 like a loving champ.


PC LOAD LETTER posted:

I remember waiting each month for a new version of the 4in1's to fix some weird issue that would pop up with all those VIA boards. Ahh memories.
I had an Athlon 1.33GHz, KT133A-powered Abit KT7A, and SB Live 5.1 card. I only ever had one problem -- I simply couldn't run Nero Burning ROM, which would report that the Checksum Failed when it ran its own internal file integrity functions. I never saw data corruption, instability, or any other weird compatibility problems, but clearly they were there, lying dormant, until I dared to burn a CD.

frumpsnake fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 4, 2011

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Stanley Pain posted:

This thread is full of nostalgia :allears:

All the techs at the Best Buy I worked at when the Athlon came out went to some meeting, I didn't go for some reason. They all came back with a CPU+MB that the AMD rep gave out for free! :argh:

Alereon
Feb 6, 2004

Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed
College Slice

pienipple posted:

http://www.active-hardware.com/english/reviews/mainboard/a7n8x.htm

This was the Athlon XP board to have, and it was great. I still have it in my htpc but it's defunct because I dropped my monstrous Zalman heatsink on the chip and cracked the core.
Pshhh, Abit NF7-S v2.0, bitches. Remember when nVidia accidentally made good onboard audio on the nForce2, called SoundStorm? I assume it was an accident because they never repeated their mistake on future chipsets.

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!

frumpsnake posted:

Please. The A7N8X Deluxe version was the board to have.

Yeah, I had the not-deluxe version because it was the one I could afford at the time.

Still excellent though. :smug:

Goon Matchmaker
Oct 23, 2003

I play too much EVE-Online

Alereon posted:

Pshhh, Abit NF7-S v2.0, bitches. Remember when nVidia accidentally made good onboard audio on the nForce2, called SoundStorm? I assume it was an accident because they never repeated their mistake on future chipsets.

My old motherboard with soundstorm still lives on at my parents house. I miss that old board. I miss soundstorm. That poo poo owned.

Peanutmonger
Dec 6, 2002

pienipple posted:


This was the Athlon XP board to have, and it was great.

I can't even recall the model of my video card these days, but I definitely remember loving my Epox 8RDA+. Those were the days, running my 1700+ thoroughbred at 2400+ at 35-40C with the stock cooler.

In fact, I think it's still in my closet...

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!

Peanutmonger posted:

I can't even recall the model of my video card these days, but I definitely remember loving my Epox 8RDA+. Those were the days, running my 1700+ thoroughbred at 2400+ at 35-40C with the stock cooler.

In fact, I think it's still in my closet...

poo poo, I'd totally forgotten I had one of the 8RDA* series boards before the Asus. I'm not sure exactly which one but I think it died when the horrible little chipset fan failed and my case at the time had all the cooling properties of a toaster oven.

It was a good board but my cheap piece of poo poo case and inadequate cooling broiled it to death.

pienipple fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Apr 9, 2011

Pablo Bluth
Sep 7, 2007

I've made a huge mistake.

frumpsnake posted:

Please. The A7N8X Deluxe version was the board to have.
I still have mine chugging away as a spare ssh-tunnel server. Actually, I had two copies of the board, and the both always give me verbal 'system failed memory test' warnings (normally at some inappropriately loud volume. I wonder why that's a BIOS feature that never caught on...). But the system was never unstable, so I never bothered returning it for a third board.

Pablo Bluth fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Apr 9, 2011

Stanley Pain
Jun 16, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Bob Morales posted:

All the techs at the Best Buy I worked at when the Athlon came out went to some meeting, I didn't go for some reason. They all came back with a CPU+MB that the AMD rep gave out for free! :argh:

I went to one of those when I worked for Staples. Was it the slot A Ahtlons that they got?

Bob Morales
Aug 18, 2006


Just wear the fucking mask, Bob

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Stanley Pain posted:

I went to one of those when I worked for Staples. Was it the slot A Ahtlons that they got?

Yes. Did you get one too, you son of a bitch?

Zhentar
Sep 28, 2003

Brilliant Master Genius

Peanutmonger posted:

I can't even recall the model of my video card these days, but I definitely remember loving my Epox 8RDA+. Those were the days, running my 1700+ thoroughbred at 2400+ at 35-40C with the stock cooler.

In fact, I think it's still in my closet...

Yes, the 8RDA+ may not have had the features of the A7N8X, but it had such excellent value for the low price.

Good thing too, I went through two or three of them thanks to watercooling accidents.

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.
All this nostalgia poo poo is great, but can we talk about the new processor to :fh: over instead?

PC LOAD LETTER
May 23, 2005
WTF?!
Not much to talk about right now. Only new info. I've seen is that supposedly BD is now coming out at Computex. So early June.

http://wccftech.com/2011/04/09/gigabyte-slide-reveals-amd-bulldozer-launch-date-launched-7th-june-computex-2011/

And yes the 8RDA+ was great. IIRC it had some of the VRM's on the back of the board which was weird and it used a different power supply spec, emphasizing the 3.3v rail, instead of the 5v or 12v rails like most PSU's. Caused it to behave oddly if you had a crappy PSU, but oh man was it good if you had a good one.

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.
Updated OP w/ GIGABYTE release info and basic info on the FX line.

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!
I'm trying to decide if I want to get a new mb and DDR3 ram next week and use my current processor until Bulldozer comes out or if I should wait and get the whole shebang after summer/early fall.

Probably get the Asus M4A89GTD PRO if I do it now, most of my PC gaming is emulation so I can drop the loud as gently caress GeForce 7950GT from my current system and use the onboard graphics until I feel the need to add a discrete video card. Remove a loud fan and a major source of heat would be so, so nice...

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.
Get something from this list, it will be AM3+ compatible with a BIOS update.

  • Crosshair IV Extreme
  • Crosshair Formula IV
  • M4A89TD PRO/USB3
  • M4A89TD PRO
  • GA-890FXA-UD5 (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-890GPA-UD3H (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-880GA-UD3H (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-880GMA-USB3 (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-880G-USB3 (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-880GM-USB3 (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-870A-UD3 (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-870-UD3P (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-870A-USB3 (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-870A-USB3L (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-MA770T-UD3P (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-MA770T-UD3 (Rev 3.1)
  • GA-770T-D3L (Rev 3.1)
  • MSI 890FXA-GD70
  • MSI 880GMS-E35
  • MSI 890FXA-GD65
  • MSI 870A-G54
  • MSI 890GXM-G65
  • MSI 870A-G54H
  • MSI 880GMA-E55
  • MSI 870A-G46
  • MSI 880GMA-E35
  • MSI 760GM-P33

Added info to OP.

Sinestro fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Apr 10, 2011

Stanley Pain
Jun 16, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Bob Morales posted:

Yes. Did you get one too, you son of a bitch?

Yup :smugdog:

I actually sold it to some dude who collects this kind of crap not too long ago.

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!

Nonpython posted:

Get something from this list, it will be AM3+ compatible with a BIOS update.

<snip>

Added info to OP.

The M4A89GTD* boards are also bios upgradable, Asus stated all their 890FX and 890GX boards will handle AM3+.

Mo_Steel
Mar 7, 2008

Let's Clock Into The Sunset Together

Fun Shoe
To be perfectly sure I comprehend the OP correctly (because it's backwards from the previous jump), I'm using a Socket AM2+ motherboard right now with a Socket AM3 CPU. When Bulldozer drops, I can buy a Socket AM3+ motherboard and drop the Socket AM3 CPU right over?

So basically Socket AM2+ motherboards were forwards compatible (with AM3 CPUs) and Socket AM3+ motherboards will be backwards compatible (with AM3 CPUs)? I've been considering a system upgrade but if Bulldozer is out in a few months I'll stick to upgrading just my graphics card if I've got the above worked out properly.

pienipple
Mar 20, 2009

That's wrong!

Mo_Steel posted:

To be perfectly sure I comprehend the OP correctly (because it's backwards from the previous jump), I'm using a Socket AM2+ motherboard right now with a Socket AM3 CPU. When Bulldozer drops, I can buy a Socket AM3+ motherboard and drop the Socket AM3 CPU right over?

So basically Socket AM2+ motherboards were forwards compatible (with AM3 CPUs) and Socket AM3+ motherboards will be backwards compatible (with AM3 CPUs)? I've been considering a system upgrade but if Bulldozer is out in a few months I'll stick to upgrading just my graphics card if I've got the above worked out properly.

Some AM3 boards will be bios upgradeable to take an AM3+ chip, mostly 890FX/890GX chipset boards.

All AM3+ boards will take an AM3 chip.

pienipple fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Apr 10, 2011

Inept
Jul 8, 2003

Does anyone know for sure what the limitations may be of using AM3 boards instead of AM3+ ones? I've read something along the lines of voltage adjustment for power savings not being as good along with something related to Hyper Transport speeds.

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.

Inept posted:

Does anyone know for sure what the limitations may be of using AM3 boards instead of AM3+ ones? I've read something along the lines of voltage adjustment for power savings not being as good along with something related to Hyper Transport speeds.

No one will know until June.

DaNzA
Sep 11, 2001

:D
Grimey Drawer

PC LOAD LETTER posted:

I remember waiting each month for a new version of the 4in1's to fix some weird issue that would pop up with all those VIA boards. Ahh memories.

drat I must had the worst luck with hardwares from that era. First the Slot A Athlon with GeForce DDR incompatibility. Then the VIA chipset that needed 4in1 patch to stay (somewhat) stable, but ultimately always locked up from time to time with the creative sound card. And finally the Abit VP6 that was great with dual P3 933 but had a bunch of bad caps :sigh: ...

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!

DaNzA posted:

And finally the Abit VP6 that was great with dual P3 933 but had a bunch of bad caps :sigh: ...
Dual CPU crew represent!

loving multicore hipsters. We were at it way back. Actually, I even had a dual P2-350. At some point, Intel dropped consumer multiprocessing and AMD didn't have any offerings. I refused to upgrade away from my own P3-933 until AMD released the Athlon X2.

Maggot Monster
Nov 27, 2003
I apparently had a different experience to you guys because every loving nvidia chipset board I had would cause endless and bizarre problems. The worst of the lot was after I put together some Shuttle/nforce3 computer that would destroy harddrives.

I send the drive back and get a replacement - it eats the replacement. I send that back and get another replacement and it eats that one. We're all a bit baffled at this point so I try with a couple of older disks - it destroys those.

Anyway, to cut a boring story shorter the fix was to flash the firmware on the cd-rom drive in order for it to stop destroying hard drives. It made no sense at all and the assumption was that the cd drive was putting garbage onto the ATA bus and breaking things in some crazy kind of way.

I always had weird nforce issues like that, from network to i/o errors, across three different desktops.

Factory Factory
Mar 19, 2010

This is what
Arcane Velocity was like.

Combat Pretzel posted:

Dual CPU crew represent!

loving multicore hipsters. We were at it way back. Actually, I even had a dual P2-350. At some point, Intel dropped consumer multiprocessing and AMD didn't have any offerings. I refused to upgrade away from my own P3-933 until AMD released the Athlon X2.

What up, symmetric multiprocessing buddy? :hfive: I used a year of allowance and job earnings in high school to buy an A7M266-D fitted with one Athlon MP Palomino 1800+ (1.53 GHz). Got the second processor a month later for my birthday. :cool:

Later I watercooled them because I was a dumb teenager. But the experience cured me of ridiculous builds forever.

It was a drat sight better than my T-Bird on that super-flaky A7A266 with both PC133 and DDR SDRAM support. Goes to show: always find reviews that cover stability, 'cause that thing hosed itself once every two weeks and I did two RMAs before giving up on it.

Factory Factory fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Apr 10, 2011

Combat Pretzel
Jun 23, 2004

No, seriously... what kurds?!
Oh, I forgot about the Athlon MP. I can't remember why I didn't go that route.

PUBLIC TOILET
Jun 13, 2009

Maggot Monster posted:

I apparently had a different experience to you guys because every loving nvidia chipset board I had would cause endless and bizarre problems. The worst of the lot was after I put together some Shuttle/nforce3 computer that would destroy harddrives.

I send the drive back and get a replacement - it eats the replacement. I send that back and get another replacement and it eats that one. We're all a bit baffled at this point so I try with a couple of older disks - it destroys those.

Anyway, to cut a boring story shorter the fix was to flash the firmware on the cd-rom drive in order for it to stop destroying hard drives. It made no sense at all and the assumption was that the cd drive was putting garbage onto the ATA bus and breaking things in some crazy kind of way.

I always had weird nforce issues like that, from network to i/o errors, across three different desktops.

I had great experiences using AMD-based nForce boards. Intel-based nForce boards on the other hand, holy poo poo. Never again will I do that.

incoherent
Apr 24, 2004

01010100011010000111001
00110100101101100011011
000110010101110010
I'm hoping I can walk out with a 8 core beast for the same price as SB 2500K AND use both my nvidia cards on bulldozer.

Sinestro
Oct 31, 2010

The perfect day needs the perfect set of wheels.
I going to buy the gently caress out of a 2P Interlagos build.

Not A Gay Name
Nov 8, 2008

incoherent posted:

I'm hoping I can walk out with a 8 core beast for the same price as SB 2500K AND use both my nvidia cards on bulldozer.

Well, 2 pages back I posted:

Not A Gay Name posted:

Not exactly about Bulldozer itself, but still relevant. It seems that for the 990 chipsets AMD came to an agreement with Nvidia to get SLI support.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-to-unlock-sli-for-amd-990-series-chipsets/11778.html

Up to Tri-SLI on the 990FX and just vanilla SLI on the 990X.

So I'm thinking you'll be able to get an 8 core beast with your SLI.

PUBLIC TOILET
Jun 13, 2009

I'm waiting anxiously for some serious benchmarks against Intel. If there's a considerable price difference and a negligible performance difference, hell I might as well just build an AMD system this time around. As much as I like Intel reference boards and Intel's virtualization performance/features, I could settle for something like an AsRock motherboard and a ridiculous amount of core AMD processor.

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Alereon
Feb 6, 2004

Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed
College Slice
The 28nm successor to the AMD Ontario and Zacate low-power x86 processors, the Wichita series, has taped out at AMD for production at TSMC. "Taping out" means the chip design has been completed and sent for initial test manufacturing, after which they make any further necessary changes. About two weeks ago we learned that the AMD Radeon HD 7000-series taped out about six weeks prior, indicating that both products may be on track for a launch potentially as early as Q3. I'd expect the new C- and E-series processors to have VLIW4-based Radeon HD 7300 graphics or something to that effect, I'm thinking it will have 64 shaders (one VLIW4 SIMD block), but they could double this if they don't scale clockspeeds instead.

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