Motherboard compatibility

[wiggywinger]

Greetings 
Ive finally decided to buy a AMD Phenom II X4 940 Quad to get me on the ladder to my AMD conversion (sorry DM  )
First it was a toss up between this and an athlon 640 quad which is the same price but it was the L3 cache which won me over.
Obviously a 955 would be better but I cant afford one at the moment and the 940 is consideribly cheaper.In the future I will upgrade again to a 955 or six core.
So I now need a board to fit this to go with my ballistix ddr2 ram, am I right in assuming that I need an am2+ board? If so will this psu fit any or are they different depending on the chipset.
I am also going to use my hd4830 on this set up.
I know the athlon 640 is am3 socket but not sure if the 940 is.

Thanks

Wiggy

[absic]

Hi,

the best way to find out which motherboards will support your CPU is to check here: http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support.aspx choose your processor series as Phenom ii then choose the CPU model (Phenom ii X4 940) it will give you a list of compatible motherboards. N/A in the last column indicates that the processor isn't supported.

You can further refine your search options by choosing AM2+ as your choice of socket (yes you will need AM2+ for your current RAM) and by chipset. For example a search for 790GX chipset came back with these motherboards: http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?v=AE72F6F9D4ADD0D75C8B514EA7AE45874D37047CBE4B0A7C&s=Socket%20AM2+&cs=AMD%20790GX

[Tiger]

The GA-MA770-UD3 is still being sold at Amazon. The Phenom II X4 940 requires a BIOS upgrade to at least BIOS version FI. I believe the board ships with version FG. The Phenom II X4 940 is an AM2+ processor.

Phenom II X4 955 is an AM3 processor and will work with the version FG BIOS. Please refer to the motherboard CPU support list for details.

AM2+ motherboards use DDR2 and can also use AM3 processors. The selection of AM2+ motherboards may be limited as many models are no longer produced. Prices of DDR3 memory have dropped if you want to use the newer AM3 motherboards. In mid-2011 AMD will introduce a new Socket AM3+ Octa-Core processor with Native DDR3-1866 Memory Support.

[wiggywinger]

that leads me on to another question:-
If I bought a board that needed a bios update to run the 940 could it be updated with the 940 in or would I have to have a compatible cpu for the boards bios to update?
Sometimes you cant be sure which bios the board ships with and as I am new to amd I wont have any other cpu than the 940.

[absic]

You would need a compatible chip to be able to flash BIOS.

If in doubt you can always ask your supplier to flash to the latest BIOS before they send the board to you.