Compatibility of GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 rev 2.0 Bulldozer

I have seen that both the GA-890FXA-UD5 rev 3.0 and 3.1 boards are totally compatible for the new AM3+ processors. There is just one difference with this and that is the socket. CPU compatibility is the difference between the 3.0 to 2.1 and on the other hand, if we check the 2.1 to 2.0 then we will find that the only difference is the missing chip as well as dissimilar RAM settings.

What I am not able to understand that how the 2.0 and 2.1 are incompatible with the AM3+ processors as this having good subtle and also very less differences. I would like to hear your thoughts on this and so I am posting this thread over here. If you have something to share about this then you are most welcome.

I think that you have not seen the difference between these processors. If not then would like to tell you that Rev2.0 & 2.1 are having smaller BIOS chips as compared to the 3.0 and because of this the AM3+ processors are not supported with these. And I don’t think that there is any trick to make this supported. Other than this, it will be better if you can directly contact with the Gigayte and see if they can write bespoke BIOS which will be able to takeout some of the features and aloe the AM3+ processors to work with the Rev 2.0.

If you look properly then you will also find that the cpu socket color is different and this is for the reason that the new chips is making use of a pin which is not used by the 1090 t six cores and further. Just take a look at the cpu socket closely and you will find that the board which is blocked out on the 2.0 boards is having the square blocked out therefore there is noo place to put additional pins on that.

I have found some of the way to make it possible but that is risky and so I am not mentioning that here. If you try with that there are more chances that you may create some major problem with the system. So this is never recommended form my side.

I would like to tell you that the AM3 processor is having the 938 pins and then also the AM3 socket is having 941 holes whereas the AM3+ Socket is having 942 holes but this does not indicate that the AM3+ processors will make use of all of them. You will notice that the holes which are on the AM3+ Socket are a bit bigger and because of this the pins on the AM3+ is thicker. Because there are many of the AM3 motherboards which is having support for the AM3+ CPU's then I don’t think that there is any requirement for pin assignment otherwise thickness.

I have taken a closer look to the pictures of these two boards and I found that both of them are having similar BIOS.

I have contacted with the Gigabyte and they replied that they are currently working with the BIOS of the previous revisions of this board. If you consider the smaller BIOS chip similar to the UD5 then you will find that this is having the BIOS support for Bulldozer.

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Originally Posted by Skullnit

I have contacted with the Gigabyte and they replied that they are currently working with the BIOS of the previous revisions of this board. If you consider the smaller BIOS chip similar to the UD5 then you will find that this is having the BIOS support for Bulldozer.

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If this can be made possible then it will need to lose some of the options in order to make available the new facilities. This will be dome because there is just the fixed amount of space within the BIOS and chip and this is the reason that they have raised the size and it will make the space for the updated code.

The main issue with this is that the revisions 2.0 and 2.1 are still having the AM3 socket but in case of the Bulldozer (Zambezi) processor, it will need to have the AM3+ (AM3b) socket. This is officially announced by the AMD. Anyways, this is obvious that as you go to the newer version of this you are surely going to get more features with that. So if you wish to have these features then you can go for revisions 3.0 and 3.1.

I don’t want to argue for this but I can just say that the newer version for the boards with the AM3+ socket might be the feasible proposition.