Where are the decent Socket AM2+ motherboards?
Posted on 22nd Feb 2009 at 12:44 by James Gorbold with 7 comments
Now that AMD has finally managed to release a Phenom-branded processor worth buying, the Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition, albeit a fairly basic triple-core model, another fundamental problem has been revealed – the lack of killer Socket AM2+ motherboards.
Despite the efforts of the combined bit-tech and Custom PC reviews writers (we’ve looked at 20 plus Socket AM2+ motherboards in the last six months) none have really stood out – at least not for the right reasons. Although there have been a few ‘better than average’ designs, such as the Asus M3A79-T Deluxe, most of the motherboards have offered a poor combination of sluggish performance, limited overclocking and restrictive BIOSes.
What’s worse, seven different motherboards have gone up in smoke while running overclocked. In every case, the VRMs have failed to handle the huge power requirements of our Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition test chip. Harry’s very own office PC was the last victim of underspecced VRMs – half-way through writing up a review last week the VRMs exploded, not only shutting down the PC, but filling our lab with black smoke and an objectionable smell.
Now, its one thing for the enthusiasts not to buy underwhelming AMD processors because they are not competitive; but Socket AM2+ is doomed to failure if manufacturers don’t bother spending much time developing and investing in their motherboards.
In contrast, none of the LGA775 motherboards we’ve tested in a similar time frame have blown up when overclocked. Of course, some motherboards are better overclockers than others, but none have attempted to replicate a Napleonic battlefield, complete with black smoke, a nasty smell and lots of dead components littering the floor.
The tragedy is that AMD motherboards haven’t always been this bad. Back in 2005, when Athlon 64 ruled the enthusiast market, Socket 939 motherboards were streets ahead of their LGA775 competitors. Socket 939 motherboards were not only great for overclocking; they also helped to introduce interesting new features such as SLI and CrossFire.
Hopefully manufacturers will start to invest more time and resources in their Socket AM2+ motherboards in the future (Socket AM3 is expensive and provides no real benefit); otherwise AMD’s recent success with the Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition will be for naught. Without a good selection of overclockable, user-friendly, feature-rich motherboards to choose from you’ll still be better off building a Core 2 Duo/Quad system instead.
Despite the efforts of the combined bit-tech and Custom PC reviews writers (we’ve looked at 20 plus Socket AM2+ motherboards in the last six months) none have really stood out – at least not for the right reasons. Although there have been a few ‘better than average’ designs, such as the Asus M3A79-T Deluxe, most of the motherboards have offered a poor combination of sluggish performance, limited overclocking and restrictive BIOSes.
What’s worse, seven different motherboards have gone up in smoke while running overclocked. In every case, the VRMs have failed to handle the huge power requirements of our Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition test chip. Harry’s very own office PC was the last victim of underspecced VRMs – half-way through writing up a review last week the VRMs exploded, not only shutting down the PC, but filling our lab with black smoke and an objectionable smell.
Now, its one thing for the enthusiasts not to buy underwhelming AMD processors because they are not competitive; but Socket AM2+ is doomed to failure if manufacturers don’t bother spending much time developing and investing in their motherboards.
In contrast, none of the LGA775 motherboards we’ve tested in a similar time frame have blown up when overclocked. Of course, some motherboards are better overclockers than others, but none have attempted to replicate a Napleonic battlefield, complete with black smoke, a nasty smell and lots of dead components littering the floor.
The tragedy is that AMD motherboards haven’t always been this bad. Back in 2005, when Athlon 64 ruled the enthusiast market, Socket 939 motherboards were streets ahead of their LGA775 competitors. Socket 939 motherboards were not only great for overclocking; they also helped to introduce interesting new features such as SLI and CrossFire.
Hopefully manufacturers will start to invest more time and resources in their Socket AM2+ motherboards in the future (Socket AM3 is expensive and provides no real benefit); otherwise AMD’s recent success with the Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition will be for naught. Without a good selection of overclockable, user-friendly, feature-rich motherboards to choose from you’ll still be better off building a Core 2 Duo/Quad system instead.
7 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyAMD processors are competitive on the budget end and now around the mid end with the phenom 2 so what exactly are you saying? because it sounds like your just slagging them off for not being as good as intel the way that is phrased (i doubt you are, but if you are you shouldnt)
I mean yeah until recently they havent had a decent enthusiast chip but the way its phrased just sounds like your putting the boot in in general, it desperately needs rephrasing
And
Seriously i find that fairly off the mark considering the Phenom II 940 is a Phenom worth buying in its own right no matter what way you look at it, its also amusing since the 720BE is just a 940BE with one core disabled
You are seriously off mark with those points (and thats putting it lightly and very politely IMO) but your spot on about how stagnate the support for AMD boards is as ive said previously on these forums
Sorry for any confusion, I wasn't giving AMD/ATI a general purpose kicking - it seems we both agree that until recently (Phenom II onwards) AMD hasn't had any really competitive mid-range CPUs. Yes, I'd concede that there were some reasonable budget CPUs (Athlon X2s), but they're not what I'd call enthusiast chips, i.e. they have very low (comparative) performance and limited overclocking.
The whole point of the blog was that now there are some competitive AMD CPUs that it's a tragedy that motherboard manufacturers are letting AMD down by not providing good enough boards.
No doubt about it, while AMD have IMO some of the best chipsets in the market for what they are designed for, they are wholey let down by the pittiful support by manufacturers as ive previously said here on the DFI AMD mobo review
I have a real soft spot for AMD going back to the Duron days (still have all my old intel and AMD comps running actually!) and i always root for the underdog so it just shits me that they are wholey let down on the mobo front, they make **** boards and brand them enthusiast and sell them for an arm and a leg (lets all face it MOBO's these days ARE over priced) for a bunch of bells and whistles you dont need, dont want and will never use
The only AMD mobo maker i think has done a half decent job all around is Gigabyte, fair enough they had their issues but as soon as they had their mosfets cooking when the first phenoms were around they worked out why and went to work on it and have thus far done a pretty decent job
but in all fairness props on calling the mobo makers out on it, its definitely something that should be followed up on, ask mobo makers why they have dropped the ball so bad and what they are doing about it etc it could make for an interesting story
1. is based on their 4xxx series GPUs
2. provides support for 7.1 channel LPCM over HDMI
Motherboard manufacturers should then build kickass mobos using that chipset and a good quality 8-channel HD audio codec that can do HDCP (among Realtek codecs, 889a can do this). Then, I'd be pleased (excited, in fact) to invest some USD 200-250 in a Phenom II X4 CPU and $100-150 in a motherboard with at least two, but preferably three, full bandwidth x16 PCI-E 2.0 slots. Doesn't need to have SLI for my purposes; nvidia rips people off with SLI.
All three versions: AM2+ (DDR2) and AM3 (double and triple channel) should be released for each design, and no motherboard (going forward) should be sold without an e-sata port (for external storage), and in the case of an IGP mobo (as suggested here), they must all have an HDMI port.
An additional idea is for mobos to have active chipset cooling with a small fan to go with the heatsink in order to make it possible for slightly more powerful IGP to be used here (say, HD 4550 instead of 4350).
To top it off, start providing solid linux support on the motherboard side (i.e. downloadable drivers etc), not just AMD's catalyst for dGPUs and iGPUs.
All of this is doable with costs and prices kept very reasonable. And that's when AMD's dragon platform will truly take off (which I do predict will happen) and when AMD can go head to head with the i7's in terms of performance, the Intel Goliath can be brought down to earth.
1. video tearing
2. poor fan control
which should really be fixed ASAP.
When that's done, I'd be pleased to buy their mid-range GPUs over Nvidia's for daily graphics and light gaming, and higher-end ones when AMD's stream computing platform matures and becomes robust and usable.