Hello, I built a new PC last year and didn't go all out because i was on a budget. I got myself AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200 and Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H mobo. When i bought the motherboard , it said that it was AM2 and AM2+ i believe, that is why i paird it with the AM2 chip. Today i was browsing Gigabyte's website and it shows that this motherboard is AM3 ready. How can this be?? On The list of supported CPUs it lists Phenom II X4 chips which are AM3 chips. Is it safe for me to get this CPU? My other question is, would i need to get different kind of RAM? I think i have DDR2 800, but i would have to double check that. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!!!
AMD hasnt changed there sockets every time they role out a new chip like Intel. You can get that CPU but i dotn recall if DDR3 is needed off hand. Google should answer that for you and should you need DDR3 the mobo doesnt support it at a glance.
I believe some boards need an up-to-date BIOS to "see" the newer CPU properly so you may want to investigate BIOS revisions before tearing everything apart...and the board definately uses DDR2(800/1066) not DDR3 so yer fine with what you have.
