FM1, Interesting new platform?

[Dirk Broer]

That is a very interesting bug to report back to the motherboard manufacturer!

Seems no bug, but a fact. VGA does not seem to like too high busspeeds on the FM1 platform. Have to buy a new monitor in order to overclock my APU. Strange, but true.

But now for the good news: AMD has lowered the prices on a number of FM1 APUs/CPUs and AM3 CPUs (I even spotted a FM2 APU, but I think A4-5300 is a typo for A6-3500!):

Processor	Old price	New price	Difference
A8-3870K	101 dollar	91 dollar	9.9%
A8-3850	97 dollar	87 dollar	10.3%
A6-3670K	80 dollar	77 dollar	3.7%
A4-5300	53 dollar	47 dollar	11.3%
A4-3400	48 dollar	40 dollar	16.7%
A4-3300	46 dollar	36 dollar	21.7%
Athlon II X4 651	92 dollar	76 dollar	17.4%
Athlon II X4 645	102 dollar	87 dollar	14.7%
Athlon II X4 641	81 dollar	65 dollar	19.8%
Athlon II X4 640	98 dollar	67 dollar	31.6%
Athlon II X4 631	79 dollar	65 dollar	17.7%
Athlon II X3 460	87 dollar	69 dollar	20.7%
Athlon II X3 455	76 dollar	65 dollar	14.5%
Athlon II X3 450	76 dollar	60 dollar	21.1%
Athlon II X2 265	69 dollar	48 dollar	30.4%
Athlon II X2 260	64 dollar	48 dollar	25.0%
Athlon II X2 255	60 dollar	47 dollar	21.7%
Athlon II X2 250	58 dollar	47 dollar	19.0%

[Dirk Broer]

I just can't believe my luck: I scored an AMD A8-3820! And for a decent price as well....
It seems that the FM1 stocks are being cleared, as I also managed to obtain the king of ASUS FM1 mobo's, the F1A75-V EVO, for a price below 90 Euros!
If I can't install Ubuntu on this combination, I will throw the windows open and go back to the camp of Gates and Balmer.

If Ubuntu settles well and I win the lottery this month I will also buy the Gigabyte and Asrock top FM1 mobo's and stick them with A8-3820s.
If the price is big enough I will repeat it with the FM2 mobos of the same companies together with a trio of A10-5700s.
Then I will make ASUS happy by buying a pile of HD 6670s and start experimenting with Triple and Quad CrossfireX.

But first things first: installing Ubuntu (or any other flavor of 64-bit Linux) on the F1A75-V EVO/A8-3820 combo...

[Dirk Broer]

Well, no price in the lottery this month but the F1A75-V EVO compares to the F1A75 like a tiger to a pussy.
The A8-3820 should, like its A6-3500 brother, be hard to overclock and on the F1A75 it was indeed so.
The F1A75-V EVO overclocks like a dream, and 3 Ghz is no problem for the A8-3820 (nominally 2500 Mhz and 2800 Mhz in turbo)
The only thing holding me back seems the Corsair Vengeance 1866 memory, that has trouble reaching that speed (at least when a VGA cable is attached -needed for the KVM switch-)
Might want to swap that for my G.Skill 2133 memory and my A8-3870K currently in the Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H mobo and connect to standalone DVI monitor to see where it ends.