AMD Phenom X3 8750 CPU Review :: CPU Setup and Overclocking

One thing about AMD CPUs is the ability of using an older motherboard with their newer CPUs as long as the BIOS is updated and the interface is the same. All AM2 motherboards are theoretically capable of running a Phenom CPU. AMD’s motherboard compatibility list includes a lot of older motherboards based upon NVIDIA nForce 570 chipsets and early AMD 690G chipsets meaning that you don’t have to necessarily buy a new motherboard if you have an old AMD chipset.

AMD has only fully tested compatibility and qualified their Phenom B2 stepping CPUs with NVIDIA nForce motherboards from the nForce 590 and 570 series. As AMD completes testing of newer NVIDIA boards they will surely add them to the list. To be fair, AMD’s testing of their AM2 6400+ CPUs has also only shown limited recommendations of motherboards, as they haven’t run the full gamut of testing. If you have a relatively recent Socket AM2 motherboard the 8750 should work with maybe a BIOS flash, as AMD doesn’t have the problems that Intel does of a new CPU requiring a new CPU.

Intel CPUs seem to require a new motherboard every CPU revision, though earlier chipsets sometimes work with newer Intel CPUs. The LGA-775 Socket has been around since 1994 with the release of the 925X and 915 chipsets but the FSB and memory support of the Intel CPUs have changed and the 925X does not support new CPUs like the QX9770. The QX9770 was released earlier this month, with four cores but works on older nForce 780i SLI or Intel X38 motherboards with overclocking.

Setup of the 8750 is the same as setup of any other AMD AM2 platform CPU. Insertion into the Socket AM2 interface is a simple matter of aligning the corners with the correct orientation, inserting the 8750 into the AM2 Socket, lowering the lever, apply thermal paste and attach the CPU cooler. The 8750 went to POST immediately on the MSI K9A motherboard that we used for testing without a BIOS flash needed. The 8750 was recognized as a Tri-Core CPU in the BIOS.

One thing I should state is that as a unreleased processor there might be some issues with performance especially when pitted against Quad Core CPUs. The Phenom X3 8750 is the first triple core CPU to hit the consumer market with most CPUs having either two or four cores. That means there potentially would be situations where triple core CPU performance would not be better than two cores as the app may not be coded to see non-power of two CPUs. Overclocking of the 8750 was an interesting affair. I was able to overclock the Phenom X3 8750 CPU to 3.0GHz from the 2.4GHz default clock that it comes at. A 20%+ overclock is excellent for any CPU and the 8750 delivered it. Of course overclocking is processor and motherboard dependent and your mileage may vary.

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