Socket AM3 CPUs will work with the Socket AM2+ interface but not vice versa. The Socket AM2+ Phenom II X4 940 therefore will work on any motherboard that has a BIOS that supports the new CPU. Installation of the Socket AM2 CPU is fairly easy. Lift up the lever, lower the processor into position, making sure the arrow matches the orientation of the CPU and close the lever. At this point you are ready to install the CPU cooler.
AMD's retail CPU comes with a two heat pipe cooling solution that should be familiar with anyone that has bought an AMD CPU in the recent past. To install the cooler simply lower the cooler over the CPU, align the hooks with the lever, lower the lever and attach the CPU fan power connector. This works fairly well and cools the Phenom II X4 940 to a temperature of 33C idle in the BIOS. Using an ASUS M4A79 Deluxe board the setup was easy and the CPU was correctly identified right out of the box.
Over clocking on the AMD Phenom II X4 940 was a breeze and very stable. The ASUS M4A79 Deluxe board was able to over clock the 3.0GHz 940 to 3.6GHz without breaking a sweat and totally stable on the default AMD cooler. AMD has touted the over clocking done by Macci with exotic liquid cooling to reach over 6.3GHz, but the default cooler got a 20% over clock without problem. AMD's Overdrive utility got to 210MHz before crapping out, but it was still stable above that. Note I didn't spend a lot of time changing voltages due to time constraints.
