News - IDF 2010: Upcoming Sandy Bridge CPU overclocks well

[HEXUS]

But you'll have to invest in a new motherboard to take advantage.

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[Jimbo75]

Nice summary.

[danroyle]

why do they have to keep changing Sockets it's Blooming annoying.

[cordas]

why do they have to keep changing Sockets it's Blooming annoying.

Its so they can give added functionality... to their end of year figures. This has long been a feature of Intels business model that only changed when AMD's Athlon CPUs took the speed crown and Intel was on the back foot.

[latrosicarius]

Its so they can give added functionality... to their end of year figures. This has long been a feature of Intels business model that only changed when AMD's Athlon CPUs took the speed crown and Intel was on the back foot.

I doubt it. Intel is not a motherboard manufacturer. (Well, they are, but not a big one.)

I think it would make more business sense to keep the same socket for as long as possible. Customers will be more inclined to buy their CPUs if the company is known for providing an economical upgrade path.

I would like to think there must be technical reasons for the changes.

Although, I suppose it's possible that they (or some individuals in the company's upper management) could be getting certain "benefits" from their motherboard manufacturer partners in exchange for requiring a new socket.

[scaryjim]

I would like to think there must be technical reasons for the changes.

The reason for the change - other than to extract more money from your pocket, no doubt - is, for one, to enable the graphics portion to output video correctly; it now has native DisplayPort connectivity.

So yes, there's at least one technical reason to change the pin layout...

[iiee]

I doubt it. Intel is not a motherboard manufacturer. (Well, they are, but not a big one.)

I think it would make more business sense to keep the same socket for as long as possible. Customers will be more inclined to buy their CPUs if the company is known for providing an economical upgrade path.

I would like to think there must be technical reasons for the changes.

Although, I suppose it's possible that they (or some individuals in the company's upper management) could be getting certain "benefits" from their motherboard manufacturer partners in exchange for requiring a new socket.

They may not make motherboards but they sure as hell do make chip sets. There is a reason why intel got so upset when nvidia started to eat into there atom chipset business with ion. Motherboards are like graphics cards to a certain extent Amd and intel make the core hardware then the motherboard manufacturers intergrate it and add there own value adds. In the server market where cpu's are just one of several big capital costs it makes sense to keep the same motherboard because many server owners want stable long term platforms for at least 2-3 years to make replacing and upgrading an easy task. But in the low/mid range consumer/business client market where most users replace whole computers every 3-4 years The upgrade path doesn't really matter to most people. When they want to upgrade there computer they generally just buy a new one.