Did the socket game hurt AMD?

[imported_Com80787]

It seems almost like AMD wasted a huge amount of time playing games after the release of the Socket 754 CPUs. The next move they made was from 754 to 939 giving us dual channel. (which should have been in 754 to begin with IMO) Then they went from 939 to AM2 which as far as I can tell offered practically nothing from 939.

What were they thinking? There was a HUGE amount of time between these socket releases in which they could have been working on better CPU design instead of new sockets. Were they just trying to make money on new product with little upgrade over the past generation? I got a 754 system and right after that 939 came out. Highly annoying. Then AM2 not so long after.

I've been with AMD since the original Athlon and it's disapointing to see them making these kinds of moves.

 

[Neos]

I had the same thoughts after I built my 754 system. I hope that it was an oversight, or lack of good judgement that made for so many changes - and not AMD just changing to make us change systems.
Lack of good judgement could very well be it. If yes - I hope that someone at the top is seeing what it may cost them. Lots of folk have no qualms about jumping ship to Intel.

 

[myocardia]

Yeah, it seems to me that AMD has been sitting on their heels since they developed the Athlon 64. I mean, like you said, no difference between the performance of a Skt. 754 A64 and a Skt. 939, except dual channel, which like you said, should have been included in the Skt. 754 chips. BTW, were you as ticked about the pricing of the X2's as I was, until last month, of course? A Skt. 939 3200 wasn't much over $100, BUT two of them was $300? <---the 3800 X2

 

[aka1nas]

I agree socket 754 was kind of a lame start and socket 939 with better validation and support for single channel configurations would have been better.

939 to AM2 is pretty much for DDR2 support because the market and large OEMs require it. It wasn't intended to be a major revamp.

Honestly, it waasn't much different with K7. The physical socket stayed the same, but with the exception of Nforce2 platforms, it was pretty hit or miss mixing significantly different generation CPUs and motherboards.

 

[slpaulson]

I'm sure they have a different team of people working on their next generation cpu. It isn't like 100% of the company's resources were put towards just changing sockets.

 

[akugami]

I agree with the socket 754 vs 939 fiasco but AM2 while not offering much of an improvement does offer up DDR2. On the other hand, at least we know clearly that for 99% of the cases, if you bought a socket 939 CPU, it works with socket 939. If you bought a socket 754 CPU, it works with socket 754, ditto with AM2. Intel has been playing musical chairs with buyers having to get a PHD to learn what processors work on what chipset using the same socket.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: akugami
Intel has been playing musical chairs with buyers having to get a PHD to learn what processors work on what chipset using the same socket.

Not to mention which revision of chipsets.

 

[imported_Sincity]

Yeah...I was annoyed knowing full well that the A64 S939 system I was building earlier this year would be eclipsed by AM2.

 

[Neos]

What about this new plan to put Opterons in the new AM2 socket along with the type F? Am I missing something or is that a good move on AMD's part. Sure seems to be customer friendly as far as making a system go further.

 

[River Side]

It's all about being the price/performance leader.. AMD could do backflips i don't care.. as long as they provide the best price/performance ratio.. users would flock to them..

Now we see Intel finally borrowing that page from AMD's book and its gonna be one tough rest of the year for AMD cuz of that..

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
I agree socket 754 was kind of a lame start

Huh? Socket 754 was as much better than anything Intel had as C2D's are over Socket 939. The slowest 754 chip competed with Intel's fastest EE chip, for instance.