In almost any P35 review, they point out how it introduces 1333MHz processor support, something that 975X does not support it. Recently ASUS announced they would support 1333MHz processors on three of their 975X boards, even thought Intel didn't officially support it.
http://event.asus.com/mb/fsb1333/
Intel offers a single 975X-based motherboard of their own, and as of Tuesday, it supports three of the 1333MHz processors.
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboar ... 026614.htm
As far as I can tell, none of the thousands of hardware news sites have picked up on this. I guess this means it's official? Makes the upcoming X38 look a lot less exciting.
Intel does an about-face on 975X?
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Hmm nice find, seems Intel has updated a lot of specs on their mainboard pages lately, I've noticed some other changes, but no where near as exiting as thisone.
Kinda pisses me off though, a friend of mine just ordered parts for a system including this board, and he went for a Q6600 since it seemed like the best option for this board after the price cuts.
But if this is really true then it changes things, and changes my own intentions too. I was going for a Bad Axe 2 with Q6600 myself if the new DX38BT hadn't arrived yet. But if it now suddenly supports the 1333 MHz chips too, then I guess I can reconsider.
And you're right, your post was the first time I saw this mentioned. Guess it can either be someone screwing up at Intel, or an ace hidden somewhere high up a sleeve.
Kinda pisses me off though, a friend of mine just ordered parts for a system including this board, and he went for a Q6600 since it seemed like the best option for this board after the price cuts.
But if this is really true then it changes things, and changes my own intentions too. I was going for a Bad Axe 2 with Q6600 myself if the new DX38BT hadn't arrived yet. But if it now suddenly supports the 1333 MHz chips too, then I guess I can reconsider.
And you're right, your post was the first time I saw this mentioned. Guess it can either be someone screwing up at Intel, or an ace hidden somewhere high up a sleeve.
The DX38BT is DDR3 only, which last I checked costs a small fortune compared to DDR2. No thanks for me.I was going for a Bad Axe 2 with Q6600 myself if the new DX38BT hadn't arrived yet.
You know what's even stranger is that it says for the 1333MHz processors a BIOS version of 2692 or higher is required. That version was released all the way back on April 3rd! Since then two other updates have been released which both include "updated processor support" in their description. Makes me wonder if these versions include support for the other 1333MHz processors or ones that aren't even available yet.
It's probably also a positive sign of supporting G0-stepping Q6600's.
Well, those of us running (now year-old) 975X-based P5W DH boards with overclocked C2D CPUs aren't that excited by 1333 MHz support...
I've been running at 1445 since last summer, and many folks run faster than that.
For those who might not know, the 1333 support has to do with "strappings" supplied by the motherboard to the CPU to tell it what the FSB speed is, and thus what clock multipliers the BIOS should allow the CPU to use. Officially, the 975X supports the 1066 strapping but not the 1333 strapping. ASUS (and I would assume also Gigabyte) found a workaround, as they often do.
My system is running with a 1066 strapping, but also with a seriously overclocked FSB.
In the land of overclocking, things are not always intuitive. A higher number for one of the system clocks can result in reduced performance, due to a lower clock rate for some other part of the system, because of the way the clock multipliers work.
I've been running at 1445 since last summer, and many folks run faster than that.
For those who might not know, the 1333 support has to do with "strappings" supplied by the motherboard to the CPU to tell it what the FSB speed is, and thus what clock multipliers the BIOS should allow the CPU to use. Officially, the 975X supports the 1066 strapping but not the 1333 strapping. ASUS (and I would assume also Gigabyte) found a workaround, as they often do.
My system is running with a 1066 strapping, but also with a seriously overclocked FSB.
In the land of overclocking, things are not always intuitive. A higher number for one of the system clocks can result in reduced performance, due to a lower clock rate for some other part of the system, because of the way the clock multipliers work.