Mainboards supporting new Socket A processors with 266MHz FSB are appearing day by day. New AMD processors with a faster 266MHz FSB required mainboards based on new VIA KT133A, AMD-760 and ALi MAGiK 1 chipsets. Unfortunately, old Socket A mainboards based on VIA KT133 chipset are unable to work with new AMD CPUs. It is quite logical that those who are now looking for new mainboards supporting 266MHz FSB are quite concerned to find out whether they will have to once again upgrade their mainboards in the nearest future in order to remain up-to-date. The thing is that AMD is going to start manufacturing its new Athlon and Duron processors based on Palomino and Morgan cores in May-June 2001. All Duron processors starting from 900Mhz working frequency will be based on Morgan core and new Athlon processors starting from 1.5GHz clock frequency will be based on a new Palomino core. That’s why we decided to ask one of AMD representatives this question: will the today’s mainboards be compatible with the upcoming Socket A CPUs? Here is what the answer was:

"Assuming they [mainboards] have the correct voltage regulator (which they should on a validated system), the parts are socket compatible. They will need to flash a new BIOS."

So, taking into account that vast majority of mainboards have a "correct voltage regulator", there shouldn’t be any problems. The only thing you should keep in mind, is that Palomino processors will be designed to support 266MHz FSB while Morgan processors will also work in VIA KT133 based mainboards.