This would be a really pleasant surprise, if I can drop a Bulldozer in my Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P AM3 board I'll be one happy camper. If ASUS can do it, surely Gigabyte will be soon to follow.

Good news for users on the AM3 platform if the rest of the motherboard manufacturers follow the lead of Asustek regarding enabling support for the new Bulldozer CPUs in their existing AM3 boards. My only concern is that PC users who install the new AM3+ CPUs on their existing boards may not be able to activate all the features of the new processors. As for myself, since I'm currently running an AM2 board, whatever upgrade path that I choose will necessarily require the whole package of motherboard, memory and CPU since DDR2-based platforms are pretty much obsolete.

It appears this compatibility is only for the 890/850 chipset MB's

I guess this is good news for people who have just upgraded, but since this is a completely redesigned CPU you should atleast have the board it was designed for, plus to get the full potential of new architecture. I just wish it was released in 1 month not 3, im so ready to upgrade my 955.

When are the bulldozer cpus going to be released?

Oh well, sounded too good to be true

I wonder if gigabyte would add support for bulldozer for the 790XT-USB3... Please do Please do.

Compability will soon arrive to 870 and 880 chipsets,says the Asus website, if you dig enough. Not at this time maybe, but it will arrive that's for sure.

This is one of the reasons why I continue to support AMD.

I've got a computer that I'm upgrading in bursts for a friend... He's got a 955 as well, and is anxious to move up, but doesn't have lots of cash all at once (and his mobo chipset is not one that can be updated for AM3+). So, we're going incremental. Watching for a good AM3+ motherboard that we feel would make a good foundation for his system. Once that's available, we grab that and memory. Since the AM3+ boards are supposed to be fully backwards compatible with AM3 processors, we can keep the 955 for now, and then grab a BD processor when they are available (and he has the money again). Odds are he may run 6 months or more with the 955, and it's nice to have that option.

Which reminds me... Has anyone seen actual AM3+ boards available in the wild yet? Still none on Newegg, but I seem to recall seeing several "AM3+ boards now available" mentions throughout the net fairly recently... Most reports indicated Q1 of 2011 for release of those boards, as well.

I've seen listings for a DFI Lanparty that's supposed to be AM3+ but not really sure it's for real with the chipset it lists.

http://www.amamax.com/dfilabi78soa.html

Has to be a typo. It has a 785G northbridge.

Good discussion here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=268098

From that discussion: AM3+ requires a new socket, but these sockets are already shipping in new AM3 motherboards, so these boards will be upgradable to an AM3+ compatible BIOS. Which means that AM3+ won't magically appear on old boards, but it's possible to buy new AM3 boards in the knowledge that they'll be compatible with AM3+.

That has been a portion of the debate. It looks possible that the ( or some of them anyway) 890/850 MB's may have actually been BD (AM3+) to begin with. I keep looking for it to be written somewhere that " the 890/850 motherboards will be compatible with limited functionality" , or something along those lines. I have not found that yet.

Definitely good news and that interests me the most.

The mechanics of the whole thing >>here<< -conditions that need to be met (present AM3 socket boards) and possible feature set restrictions. Which is probably why John Fruehe (AMD's Director of Marketing-Server) is on record ( i.e. here and here )in numerous instances as saying that AM3 does not support Bulldozer -as opposed to Bulldozer not being functional in an AM3 socket.

If anyone wants to play with/try out (the Asus) CF4 beta bios for BD compatibility, you can get it here. As always make sure you read all of the admonishments, impugning, castigations, and warnings before you do.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic162591.html#post1017433

Bulldozer should be waaaaaay popular judging by the three threads we have up and running. Kind of makes if a coin-toss as to where to post the info