Socket 939 - the only future proof socket right now

[akugami]

I always figured AMD wouldn't go the DDR2 route due to the higher latencies and needing higher speeds to hit DDR1 level performance. Not to mention sockett stability.

I was always under the impression Socket M would use DDR3 however I checked recently and current DDR3 roadmaps have it produced in Q3 2006 and running at 1.5v 1066mhz speed initially. Guess DDR3 is a little bit far off and AMD wanted a new socket to allow for DDR2 usage cause that's what someone told me.

Personally I say if you have a Socket 754 or Socket 939 mobo you should wait longer for DDR3 rather than updating to DDR2. The performance of the CPU's coming out in the next year don't seem so hot anyways. Speed bin upgrades along with dual core. The average Joe won't see any benefit from dual core until more software supports it. If you have a P4 6xx or A64 CPU you won't see a large performance boost from getting the new higher speed chips. Video production and graphics should already support SMP so they have a reason to upgrade.

DDR2 and especially DDR3 seems well suited for laptops running at 1.8v and 1.5v respectively rather than the 2.5v of current DDR1. So if you're in the market soon for a laptop it'd probably be better to wait to see when AMD uses DDR2 or DDR3 or maybe go with a Pentium M chip with DDR2 support.


So in a sense, Socket 939 mobo is future proof to a degree. I definitely don't see the need to upgrade for two years if you have a S939 or S754 mobo with a high end video card. Perhaps to a dual core CPU. However, in that time I might get a whole new system with dual core and DDR3 along with whatever new video card is out at that time.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

the term futureproof needs to die, there's no such thing

 

[Duvie]

Socket stability seems fine for me.....I will hold onto this board for a venice upgrade here in a month or so....then perhaps if dual core is out near the end of the year I will hold onto this mobo still....

The Neo2 is already proven to run the new venice cores and should run the new dual core with a bios flash....I tend to be bit mre bleedindd edge then most but ppl will use sckt754 and sckt939 for well more then a year.

Future-proof is subjective. For that person who always buys near the top of the product lines there is always less room to grow into the platofrm. If a person gets a sckt 939 3000+ (doens't OC) there are sevral options for him to upgrade to significantly faster pcus now, more in the future, and perhaps dual core. Those type of ppl who will run into dual core later then most will have a nice stable platform for well into 06....

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: deveraux
Socket A was legendary though, a whopping 5-6 years IIRC. There might be older sockets that lasted longer but I don't go that far back.

The SOCKET lasted that long, but the technology around the socket didn't even come close to that long.

When Socket A came out people were still using SDR RAM and single digit gigabyte drives. Early Socket A boards do not support the barton and thoroughbred cores, DDR RAM and 160 GB hard drives of today. I still needed 3 distinct boards to span the Socket A era.

I go into any MB/CPU purchase expecting to not upgrade one seperately from the other. History has shown me that in almost all cases, it is rarely logical to upgrade one or the other and not both (taking into account factors like price, performance, features and how technology has changed since initial purchase.)

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: deveraux
Socket A was legendary though, a whopping 5-6 years IIRC. There might be older sockets that lasted longer but I don't go that far back.

The SOCKET lasted that long, but the technology around the socket didn't even come close to that long.

When Socket A came out people were still using SDR RAM and single digit gigabyte drives. Early Socket A boards do not support the barton and thoroughbred cores, DDR RAM and 160 GB hard drives of today. I still needed 3 distinct boards to span the Socket A era.

I go into any MB/CPU purchase expecting to not upgrade one seperately from the other. History has shown me that in almost all cases, it is rarely logical to upgrade one or the other and not both (taking into account factors like price, performance, features and how technology has changed since initial purchase.)

I agree....I had socket a 750 tbird to 1.4tbird, but that board was terribly obsolete when it came to memory, HDD support, cpu fsb support, etc....