Putting a AMD Kuma 7850 AM2+ on a Gigabyte AM2 board

I am planning on putting a AMD X2 7850 AM2+ Kuma processor on my old motherboard, which is a Gigabyte M55SLI-S4 AM2 socket mobo. I know that there will be some stuff being held back because of the older motherboard, but will it still run ok or be compatible? A fast answer is appreciated on this since my parts arrive tomorrow and a friend is taking the time to help me with the processor and graphics card installation. Thank you for your time =)

According to the Gigabyte page for your motherboard, which can be found here, the M55SLI-S4 does not support any AM2+ processors. So this means you will not be able to use the 7850 on this motherboard.
My suggestion is to buy a new board that does, or stick with the supported Athlon64 X2 processors that are on that list - the fastest of which would be the X2 6400 at 3.2GHz.

A replacement motherboard can be had for pretty cheap, such as this zotac 8200 for $60, but drops to $40 after rebate. This will support all modern AM2, AM2+ and AM3 processors. Obviously there are other boards out there, ranging anywhere from $55-$80 that will be well suited to chips like the 7850.

Is that brand ok? I would actually prefer a regular ATX sized motherboard if possible, but it seems like so many are mATX.

Was thinking about this one possibly..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128376

well without knowing your budget or your willingness to replace the motherboard, I just went with a solid budget board. I use zotac boards for a lot of budget systems simply because they are cheap, great tech support, and I've yet to have any serious issues...basically a good step up from the cheaper ECS or Foxconn boards.

Micro ATX boards are popular these days because they contain all the basic features people want and need. They tend to overclock pretty well (though typically ATX boards are better in general), offer the PCI Express 2.0 slot, 4 memory dimms, and decent on board audio/lan. Unless you really need a full ATX motherboard, why bother paying an extra $20 for a few more PCI slots?

But that board in particular is fine, but you will want to make sure that you have bios version F5 or above (latest is F7), as version F5 was the first version to add support for the X2 7850. More details can be found here. But really, as long as you are looking at boards based on the 740, 770, 780, or 790, you will be fine using that processor. So look at boards based on your experiences with the companies, price range, and your particular needs.

Thanks for helping, I really appreciate it =)

One more question though.. if it requires to have BIOS F5 to be able to use my processor, how can you get it on there without flashing the old BIOS to the new one?

well odds are it will ship with at least F5, but if not it will work with your existing AM2 chip, so that you can flash it to the latest bios, then install the new chip.