AM3 on AM2 motherboards

[viclaw]

Hello,

I would really appreciate some help regarding my motherboard. I have a MS-7253 board which at the moment uses a AMD Athlon 64 x2 4000+. I was wondering whether it supports AM3 processors as I am slightly confused. Some of the forums I've read said that AM3 and AM2+ can be used on AM2 boards but no the other way around.

I have this link which for my motherboard from the manufacturer which says it doesn't even support AM2+ processors.

http://eu.msi.com/index.php?func=prodcpusupport&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=&prod_no=260

Am I right in saying that in order to upgrade to an AM3 processor I would have to change the motherboard? Or should I try and put an AM3 chip in and see what happens?

Thanks in advance.

 

[loneninja]

Based on the link you provided, it seems they didn't update the BIOS to support newer cpus, you'll need a new motherboard.

 

[N.Broekhuijsen]

My old mobo some asus am2 board did not support the new phenom (planning on upgrading soon)

ALready got a new board (m4a785d-m pro) which is a socket am2+. this does support phenom 2

reason you cannot put a am2 or am2+ cpu in a socket am3 is because socket am3 is always coupled with DDR3, and the old am2 am2+ cpu's dont have ddr3 memory controllers.

am3 cpu's have support for ddr2, so they can go in a socket am2+, not am2 though (dont ask me why).

regardless, its very nice of AMD to have done this since I do not want to buy ddr3 ram, (too xpensive) but do want the new quad cores.

intel has been an ***hole and if you want a new intel cpu (i7 i5 etc) you need to get a new board and new ram and of coarce the cpu itself. most of us amd boys already have am2+ boards and enough ram, so its just under 200$ for the upgrade, and not near 400-500 for only wanting to upgrade cpu.


i do tend to rant on dont I?

anyways you should be able to pick up a decent am2+ board somewhere pretty cheap around 50-60$.