Zen developers were given "total freedom," says AMD engineer

[DanceswithUnix]

Well, theres the first turn-off already

I've had motherbaords with ASMedia SATA and USB chips and they have had some of the flakiest drivers ever.....

True, my ASUS AM3+ motherboard has ASMedia USB 3 ports on it, and they don't work under Linux. So far that hasn't been a problem, but it doesn't fill me with confidence for the future.

[DanceswithUnix]

This is a little worrying: https://www.chipworks.com/about-chip...samsung-fabbed

On the other hand, for Apple to go through all the trouble of dual-sourcing a custom designed part and launching on day one with both parts, suggests major sourcing problems.

I hope AMD can actually get some Zen based cpus built.

[Sunderas]

Amd has been playing with APUs right now, but it is time it flexes some muscle in a pure CPU chip. Specially now with programs being more and more tailored for multi-core usage.

[aidanjt]

True, my ASUS AM3+ motherboard has ASMedia USB 3 ports on it, and they don't work under Linux.

Really? I thought it would just be a generic xHCI interface? Very odd.

[DanceswithUnix]

Really? I thought it would just be a generic xHCI interface? Very odd.

Not looked into it in any depth, USB2 is enough for any peripherals I have used and there are plenty of those so I just tend to avoid the USB3 ports in Linux.

[DanceswithUnix]

Somewhere like Amazon I could agree, but Novatech isn't where I would expect the man off the street to go, and their top selling i5 is the 4460 not a high clock version.

Asrock seem to be doing some new motherboards as well. I have often gnashed teeth at the lack of good uATX motherboards for AM3+, but now I see there is http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/970M%20Pro3/

In case anyone is interested, my Asus motherboard seemed to be failing (SATA ports are going wonky) so I bought one of these to see if the FX-8350 CPU was still OK. So far working fine, seems a nice motherboard with a decent BIOS, clams to be able to take 140W CPUs. VRM and chipsets are heatsinked in a very businesslike way rather than the Asus where the VRM heatsink seemed like a place to put branding stickers more than get rid of heat.

I paid £60.45 for mine, price has gone up 10% so perhaps they are already getting popular.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-970M-.../dp/B00TOBQQTK

[shaithis]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-970M-.../dp/B00TOBQQTK

Do you know if they support RDIMMs?

[DanceswithUnix]

Do you know if they support RDIMMs?

Sorry, don't know. I have non registered ECC ram in it, which works but with no ECC support. Not seen any mention of registered in the manual or online spec.

Price has gone up another £2, I am seeing £68.47 now.