I called Asus and talked to their customer support (Tel: 812-282-2787). The person I spoke to told me that my board was supported with a bios update and it should work.

j razz

That's the general state of things. If the manufacturer provides a BIOS update that specifically supports Phenom then you should be okay. The AM2based Motherboard would then operate the Phenom with a Hypertransport 1.0 bus speed.

Given the longish thread about crashes with Intel Quad Core processors I'd love to know if the Phenoms have the same trouble. The reviews all say that the Phenoms aren't nearly as fast as the Intel Quads but stability would be a fair trade for speed because you get a lot more done on slower systems that don't crash than you do on a fast system that crashes a lot.

Phenom, like all 64-bit AMD CPUs, has an integrated memory controller. The Intel systems put the memory controller on the Northbridge chip. Theoretically, this is a little less efficient. I don't think it's out of line to wonder if Phenom quads would have the same crashing problems that Intel quads have with Vegas.

Hopefully Sony will have the crash problem fixed *real soon* and we'll not have a chance to find out if the Phenoms crash less.

Rob Mack

i honestly dont think the CPU core issue will be living for much longer.. We all know that vegas is improved intently at each update and im sure this quad crash issue will be taken care of soon.
By deciding to buy a system based on this issue alone is foolish IMO

If anything, the quad core crashomatic issue would just make me postpone upgrading altogether.

Overall, the phenoms are supposed to be slower than the Intel Quads, so there'd have to be some other reason to get one like price, stability, or potential to use some upcoming super cool technology like GPU coprocessing. I certainly don't see the GPU coprocessing on the horizon and you just don't buy hardware on that sort of speculation.

If you could upgrade to Phenom on your existing hardware then I'd think economics would be the biggest factor.

Rob

I just upgraded my pc to a phenom 9500 with an asus mobo. May be tomorrow I'll be able to activate vegas .I'm gonna call support (I have been having problems with that).
As soon as I can I will report on renders and all.I hope it's good.

I can't say exactly how much I've gained with the phenom over my old x2 3800+ dual core.But I think I'm getting about 30 or 40% faster renders.It uses 100% all four cores on render,, but on real time work it only uses may be 40%,so I guess vegas could still
be optimized in that area.
I also use cubase a lot , and there the gain is fantastic.When my cpu was at 80% , it now is at 20%.You can use as many plugins as you want.
I know the intel quad is faster so in the end I would recomend going quad anyway.

It doesn't sound like V8 is having problems with the Phenoms, just the Intel quads. Thankfully the problems are only affecting a minority of quad owners (a significant minority, though). Because it's not affecting everyone, it gives me hope that an interim release of V8 could solve the problem.

Hope so, because I'm about to make the quad-core plunge myself. If I had an upgrade path from my AMD to Phenom, I'd just do that since it would be way cheaper. Since I need a new motherboard & RAM anyway, though, I'm MUCH better off going with the Intel. I love an underdog, so AMD's latest buffoonery really bums me out. Sounds like the Phenom is basically maxxed out at whatever clockrate you buy (i.e. can't be overclocked), but the Intel quads have A LOT of headroom to overclock. Buy a 2.4Ghz Phenom and you're basically stuck there. Buy a 2.4Ghz Intel and you can VERY easily bump that to 3.0Ghz or higher using only the stock cooler. That's impressive! I hope AMD has better luck with their 45nm process later this year.

i don't intend to overclock so that's not an issue to me.

What AM2 MB's can run the Phenom's with a bios update? I want an Asus but newegg & the asus site don't like ANY AM2's that run them, only AM2+'s.

Basically, I want a Phenom but w/o the ~$200 Phenom MB price tag. :D

This is what I have: Asus M2N32 ws pro and was told it "should" work with a bios update. It is am2.

j razz

I was going to but after I added up all the pro's and cons I went with the Q6600 and the Gigabyte board. So I had to by a new board and memory anyway and the price was nearly the same so I went with the Q6600 because it's faster and the reviews were top notch and I can overclock to match the Q6700.
JJK

Most likely you're just running up against the economics of maintaining the website data. They set the specs on the older AM2 boards and may not update the info anytime soon, especially if they have AM2+ boards on offer. Manufacturers and vendors don't really like to look backwards at products that are already in the chain. The better bet would be to pick a board you like and then check for BIOS updates that add support for Phenom.

Or if you can wait, let the AM2+ prices fall, let SCS release a VP8b or c, and see what's stable and cheap in March or April.

Rob Mack

Or if you can wait, let the AM2+ prices fall, let SCS release a VP8b or c, and see what's stable and cheap in March or April.

right now i'm on the wife's laptop & it's annoying. I need my own machine. :D

EDIT: just ordered an Asus AM2+ MB & a 9600 tonight.

Sounds like it was time to upgrade, not time to wait and see.

Congrats on the new system (coming soon).

Rob

old machine was destroyed in a fire. Right after I got that X2 4200 too. :D

For the past 2 years I've had a terrible time trying to update an ASUS Bios.
Check with their tech support first. If fail, never boot again.

Ugh! Sorry to hear that. Had a coworker go throughthat last year. It was awful for her but she came out better off in the end with a nicer place to live.

Rob

For the past 2 years I've had a terrible time trying to update an ASUS Bios.

How were you updating the bios? The past two MB's I've had I've used the windows update util with 100% success over ~3/4 years.

It was when the P4-3.2Ghz HT were being used a lot.
I had previously updated many ASUS MB's without any problems.
Just thought I'd mention it because when it happens you have to install a new bios chip on the MB.
Not just myself, others have had the same or similar problems.
No, I didn't update through windows.

some MB's contain two bios chips. One is the current that the board runs off of, the other is a backup of the original bios installed at the factory. So when the main chip dies you can still access the machine. Neat idea!

Up untill yesterday I was OK with my phenom setup but not thrilled. was actually running it underclocked. Four cores at 1.1 ghtz. Updated the bios and now I really love it. It did the new hdv render test in 3 min 17 sec.Slower than the intel quad but still great for me.(phenom 9500 + asus M2A VM + 2 gigs of ddr2 800 ).
Very stable,very happy now.

that's similar to what I ordered: AMD 9600, A3M & 2gb DDR2 1066.