Bios Compatibility

[sdlieb]

Hello Folks,
New poster here. I am looking at building a new computer using pcpartspicker.com and running into a question/concern. I am trying to get a AMD FX-8320E 3.2GHz 8-Core Processor with a ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard. The compatibility notes on the bottom say Some AMD 970 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Vishera CPUs. I don't have any old cpus that I could put in to upgrade the bios if there is a problem.

Does anyone know if this is an issue with the ASROck 970 Exteme3 R2? Any advice you could give on this or how to upgrade if I did get this issue would be great.

Here's the full build I'm looking at: AMD FX-8320E, EVGA GeForce GT 730, Rosewill GALAXY-02-A - 8 core - sdlieb's Saved Part List - PCPartPicker

Thanks in advance

[parsec]

Re: Bios Compatibility

Hello Folks,
New poster here. I am looking at building a new computer using pcpartspicker.com and running into a question/concern. I am trying to get a AMD FX-8320E 3.2GHz 8-Core Processor with a ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard. The compatibility notes on the bottom say Some AMD 970 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Vishera CPUs. I don't have any old cpus that I could put in to upgrade the bios if there is a problem.

Does anyone know if this is an issue with the ASROck 970 Exteme3 R2? Any advice you could give on this or how to upgrade if I did get this issue would be great.

Here's the full build I'm looking at: AMD FX-8320E, EVGA GeForce GT 730, Rosewill GALAXY-02-A - 8 core - sdlieb's Saved Part List - PCPartPicker

Thanks in advance

This is why partpicker is not perfect, it's not bad at all but when checking processor and memory compatibility, check the board's information page.

Looks like a FX-8320E needs BIOS 1.60, which is the latest version: ASRock > 970 Extreme3 R2.0

But the potential good news is BIOS version 1.60 was released on 6/13/2014, and the previous version 1.40 on 10/15/2013. My point is its been over a year since BIOS 1.40 was released, and BIOS 1.60 is six months old. If you get a board from recent production, it could have BIOS 1.60.

Unfortunately, the BIOS update descriptions are worthless, so we can only go by the CPU support list.

This "issue" is caused by AMD changing things with the FX-8320E, and any board that will support this CPU must have an updated BIOS that incorporates the required update.