PCX on an Athlon XP platform?

[Staz]

Will PCI Express ever make it to the older AMD Athlon XP platform(socket A)?

 

[eas]

Why would it? AMD has pretty much end-of-lifed the AthlonXP and SocketA. Socket 754 will definitely get it, but I'd be really suprised about SocketA.

 

[ts3433]

I don't think there's any reason to put PCIe on Socket A either--high-end graphics cards are already CPU-limited with Bartons these days, and subsequent releases on PCIe x16 are only going to be further bottlenecked. There's also virtually no demand at the moment for things running on x1 slots or things like that.

 

[Staz]

I was thinking of it from a budget standpoint. All PCX videocards are a good 10%-20% cheaper than the older AGP standard. Since Socket A is still the king of the budget game rigs, buying a 6600GT PCX and then have the ability to SLI it at a later time when I do buy a higher end CPU would be a good choice for a lot of people.

 

[ts3433]

Originally posted by: Staz
Since Socket A is still the king of the budget game rigs,

You're joking, right?

It is no longer a viable option unless you're only spending around $500, especially since an A64 2800+ will kill an XP 3200+ in everything. PCIe will eventually trickle down to Socket 754, but definitely not Socket A.

 

[Staz]

No, I am not joking. How cheap could you put together a 6600GT-PCX videocard, A64 CPU, and a mobo able to handle both? Imagine a company came out with a Socket-A mobo with PCX for about the same price as the current good Socket-A mobos. Now put together the same combo, but use that mobo with an XP or XP-M CPU and that same videocard. That 2nd combo would be a good amount cheaper and would be more attractive for those on a tight budget.

I guess my main point is that with the AGP version of videocards being more expensive than the PCX versions, even though the PCX is the newer platform, why not make a mobo able to handle the cheaper PCX cards for a budget system?

Do I really think it's ever going to happen, no, but I could see some people jumping on it if it does. Plus I don't care what anyone says, the preformance difference between a XP 3200+ and and A64 2800+ isn't big enough to warrent the upgrade to a newer and more expensive platform.

 

[bob661]

Socket A will be EOL by the end of 2005 or sooner. Athlon XP's are EOL'd Dec 31st. Explain why do you think the motherboard manufacturers (the same one's that bitched about BTX boards from Intel) are going to welcome adding PCIe to socket A. This would require new chipsets at the very least. Lots of expense for a market that's obviously not interested in spending money (they're still on socket A). I can get a Sempron 2200, 256MB of Kingston ram, ECS mobo, and a CPU cooler for about $150. Do you think that a person that buys this type of system would spend $200 on a video card?

 

[Peter]

No it won't. There are no new socket-A chipsets coming, and there are no generic bridge chips in the market to add PCIE to a chipset that doesn't have it.