- Sep 14, 2000
- 764
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I know I could look this up, but it seems like an interesting question for this forum. What are they used for? Does the decreasing size of the traces in the chip (ie 90 nm) make it possible? Why can't they design a socket that will have a life of more than a year or two?
Also, has flip-chip become standard so that they just don't say it anymore, as in my P3 is also called FC-PGA but I don't see any new CPUs called that? Or have they turned chips back upside down?
On this subject, if I go AMD, it seems like I should try to go with 939 over 754, but there are two theories if I tend to upgrade only on a pretty long 4-5 year cycle.
1. Buy cheap, it will be obsolete in 4-5 years anyway. Plus it's proven.
2. Spend a little more for 939 in the hopes that it will still be upgradable in 4-5 years.
Is there a reason to wait for nForce 4? I really need to build now, so I really can't play this waiting game, even though I would like PCIe. I also noticed on the nVidia site that it goes up to 3 GB/s on SATA, but do any drives match that? Only WD Raptors?
OK, the following snip from Wikipedia's Athlon 64 article gives me a clue:
_________________________________________________________________________
# 754: The Athlon 64 value/budget line, 64-bit memory interface
# 939: Athlon 64 performance line and newer Athlon 64 FXs, 128-bit memory interface
_________________________________________________________________________
So could 128 of the pins be for memory? Are these really pins? They must be exceedingly small and fragile if so.
Also, has flip-chip become standard so that they just don't say it anymore, as in my P3 is also called FC-PGA but I don't see any new CPUs called that? Or have they turned chips back upside down?
On this subject, if I go AMD, it seems like I should try to go with 939 over 754, but there are two theories if I tend to upgrade only on a pretty long 4-5 year cycle.
1. Buy cheap, it will be obsolete in 4-5 years anyway. Plus it's proven.
2. Spend a little more for 939 in the hopes that it will still be upgradable in 4-5 years.
Is there a reason to wait for nForce 4? I really need to build now, so I really can't play this waiting game, even though I would like PCIe. I also noticed on the nVidia site that it goes up to 3 GB/s on SATA, but do any drives match that? Only WD Raptors?
OK, the following snip from Wikipedia's Athlon 64 article gives me a clue:
_________________________________________________________________________
# 754: The Athlon 64 value/budget line, 64-bit memory interface
# 939: Athlon 64 performance line and newer Athlon 64 FXs, 128-bit memory interface
_________________________________________________________________________
So could 128 of the pins be for memory? Are these really pins? They must be exceedingly small and fragile if so.