Ga - m56s- s3 with am3 processors

[SideWinder989]

Hi !

First of all i just wanna say how remarkable job you all are doing at gigabyte providing best motherboards there are

i Have a question

I now have Ga-m56s-s3 motherboard with Amd Athlon 64 x2 4000+ (clocked at 2.9ghz)
i am planning an upgrade to phenom II x4 or athlon II x4 havent decided yet.. my question is can this motherboard support these processors which are AM3 coz i saw on official page of this motherboard there is latest bios which adds support for them i just need to flash it? is this gonna work in practic and how is perfomance gonna be affected with this motherboard with AM3 quad cores.. i mean im just a normal user not a 3d designer not a video encoder or such.. i just play almost all the games xD

thank you

[oggmonster]

Hi SideWinder989
Yeah it will support them with the latest BIOS upgrade. If you're purely a gamer you would be better off spending the money on a graphics card.

Whats your complete system spec? Also whats your budget?

[SideWinder989]

AMD x2 4000 (oc to 2.9ghz)
3gb Kingston ram 800mhz
Ati RAdeon 4850 Sapphire 512 vRam

thats the important stuff and yeah 550W Frontier PSU so i think its enough electric power for new x4 processors...

my budget is currently 0 $ but i could easily collect money for processor which is around 100$ here where i live... and my graphics card is pretty good so just a phenom II x4 and i should be safe for some time

tnx for your help ! i always want to hear this from a person rather then some specification chart

[oggmonster]

Bare in mind most games are not optimied for a quadcore. Also I'm not sure how good that board is for overclocking the newer processors. But if you can get a 2.6ghz x4 for that price then even for games that are not optimised it will be just as good if not better than your current cpu

[InternalError]

I have upgraded to Phenom II x4 am3 Black Edition 965 and the board only shows me 803 mhz core speed although it supposed to be showing 3.4ghz. I have the latest BIOS update (f6h) i have cool 'n quiet disabled and all other smart fan controlls. Please some one tell me what to do i am out of options

[absic]

Hi there,

Sorry to tell you that this motherboard doesn't actually support the Phenom ii 965 processor which is probably why you are only seeing 803 Mhz. Check here for CPU compatibility: http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=2607 an N/A means the CPU isn't supported.

You only really have two options either change the Processor to one that is supported or change the motherboard. 

[Ripshod]

Just thought I'd interject with a point. Even if the bios supports the processor you choose, the first thing to install after the OS and drivers is software that reads the motherboard temps. I installed a PhenomII 945(C2) in one of these boards and the motherboard temp (the VRMs) was 68C after 10 minutes. I understand that the C3 CPUs have a TPD of 95W which would result in lower temps. You certainly will not be overclocking a PhenomII on this mobo.