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alman7272
10-10-2008, 16:33
In looking to upgrade my PC, I've decided that I want a new video card, motherboard, power supply and RAM. So, on newegg, there's a 9800GTX for sale, but it says it's PCI-E 2.0...

Now, from what I've seen on newegg, apparently AM2 socket motherboards support old Athlon 64 processors (I have a 3800 Venice core), and right now I can't afford to spend another 100+ on a new processor given the hefty price for the above components. Now according to wikipedia, AM2+ has "athlon 64" listed under its processors. But newegg only has Athlon 64 FX and X2 as compatible processors.

For reference, here's a mobo I'm looking at, though I can obviously go cheaper: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128352

Then there's this one that says its athlon 64 compatible but it's micro atx: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813154016

Now here's my question...would my Athlon 64 3800+ Venice core be compatible with this "AM2/AM2+" socket? Newegg has conflicting info. And if I don't get a PCIe 2.0 compatible motherboard...would the video card not work?

If anyones had any experience with this or whatnot, help would be appreciated.

Xiahou
10-10-2008, 16:44
A Venice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64#Venice_.2890.C2.A0nm_SOI.29) AMD64? No, I would say it's not compatible with any AM2 interface.

I'm not as much of a hardware junky that some others here are, but I believe that only AM2+ CPUs are compatible (tho handicapped) on AM2 mobos. I don't believe that even AM2 CPUs will work in AM2+ mobos. Socket 939 is a different animal altogether.

Here- straight from the AM2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM2) entry in Wikipedia:
AM2 processors are incompatible with 939 motherboards and vice versa, and although it has 940 pins, it is incompatible with Socket 940[1].

alman7272
10-10-2008, 18:13
A Venice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64#Venice_.2890.C2.A0nm_SOI.29) AMD64? No, I would say it's not compatible with any AM2 interface.

I'm not as much of a hardware junky that some others here are, but I believe that only AM2+ CPUs are compatible (tho handicapped) on AM2 mobos. I don't believe that even AM2 CPUs will work in AM2+ mobos. Socket 939 is a different animal altogether.

Here- straight from the AM2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM2) entry in Wikipedia:

Ok, I see what's going on now. I was unaware that AMD produced athlon 64 for other sockets like 940 and what have you. So this poses a serious problem now because a processor is another 140 dollar beast, but if I have to get a new processor, then I might as well go with an intel.