AMD quad-core Phenom plagued by incompatibility issues

Poor AMD just can't seem to catch a break these days. While the company has managed to get their oft-delayed quad-core Phenom CPUs into the market, it looks like the chip has managed to hit a bit of a snag. Apparently a thermal frequency mismatch prevents the high-end 9750 and 9850 Phenoms from functioning properly with motherboards that use AMD's popular 780G chipset. According to AMD, chips like the 9750 and 9850 that have a Thermal Design Power (TDP) envelope of 125 watts should be paired with the 790 motherboards instead. If you're planning to drop some quad-core Phenoms into your servers or workstations, make sure you've got a compatible motherboard inside first.

For more on the compatibility issue:
- see this CNET article