Socket Ten

[Rubycon]

Will we ever see the day of unified boards again?

Rewind back to 1997 with Socket 7. You buy the board of your choice (Intel HX chipset!) and then you could've bought a plethora of different CPUs. Cyrix, AMD, Intel, WinChip, Next86, etc.

 

[kranky]

I really don't see that ever happening.

First, with more and more functions being moved to the processor, the chip maker who can pack more into the CPU will use a socket that provides all necessary lanes to the rest of the system. Socket 7 had what, around 300 pins? Now they have over a thousand? They keep getting bigger and bigger.

Also, Cyrix and WinChip probably had no choice but to make chips that used that socket, if they had any hopes of selling chips. If a new company wanted to break into the mainstream CPU market, they probably would have to produce chips that used either an Intel or AMD socket currently in use. They would have a tough time getting motherboard manufacturers to make something special for them. Of course, today I suspect everything is so patented it would be impossible.

 

[Rubycon]

I really don't see that ever happening.

I know - the technology has literally grown apart. I miss the old days. PCs are getting boring and overclocking too easy! :hmm:

It would be neat though in the future if something like this happened. One can still wish.

 

[Ben90]

Yea I miss the coolness of things like pin mods and stuff... but on the brightside with todays overclocking eveything can be so fine tuned that you can hit the absolute limit of a chip vs it running at either 333 or 466.

With socket 10, I think maybe once even the southbridge goes on package, there might be a 0.0000000001% chance that we will see a unified socket again.

 

[Gillbot]

Once they parted ways in the slot era, we all knew that was basically it. Though it was nice for the consumer to be able to switch back and forth.

 

[wwswimming]

there's an investor teleconference in a few weeks. they can be SO boring.

how about calling in and proposing a return to a unified socket ? that would liven things up.

if it's Intel, just say you have 1156 shares. if it's the AMD meeting, then 940 shares. that'll get you past the operator into the same 'room' as all the big instutional investors.

 

[sandorski]

Once they parted ways in the slot era, we all knew that was basically it. Though it was nice for the consumer to be able to switch back and forth.

When that happened it seemed like AMD's days were numbered. However, it was probably the best thing to happen to AMD and the PC Market. It freed AMD to innovate and become more competitive than they were before. Onchip Mem controllers and Multi-Core Processors would not have happened(at least not as soon as they did) if AMD was tied to a Platform that would almost certainly be dictated by Intel.

Unifying the Platforms is a bad idea.

 

[Denithor]

PhII X4 965 + P55 motherboard + BFH (big hammer ) = Unified socket?

Hmm...

Needs a bigger hammer!!

 

[Ayah]

Hell. Intel doesn't even have unified sockets within themselves. AMD either. Intel is worse though. Consumers are spread over 3 different desktop sockets. AMD only keeps enterprise and consumer apart.