Intel vs AMD for upgradability

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Marc

Irrespective of which is the faster CPU, which one would you recommend if my
main goal is upgradability. I want to remove the old CPU and plug in a newer
CPU on the same mobo & RAM in the future.

ie, will the current socket A or socket 478 take faster processors in the
future?
 
Marc said:
Irrespective of which is the faster CPU, which one would you recommend if my
main goal is upgradability. I want to remove the old CPU and plug in a newer
CPU on the same mobo & RAM in the future.

ie, will the current socket A or socket 478 take faster processors in the
future?
Hate to be cynical but the principle of upgradability defeats the
purpose of planned obsolesence. And the latter route has been the
way of the computer world. Very few exceptions although, IMO, some
peripherals such as modems, NIC's, SCSI adapters, etc., have been
able to survive through several generational changes.
 
Ghostrider said:
Hate to be cynical but the principle of upgradability defeats the
purpose of planned obsolesence. And the latter route has been the way
of the computer world. Very few exceptions although, IMO, some
peripherals such as modems, NIC's, SCSI adapters, etc., have been able
to survive through several generational changes.

Seconded. Forget about upgrading CPU. Determine what you can afford,
and get just below. Spend money on RAM, case, and power supply...
something often overlooked.
 
Seconded. Forget about upgrading CPU. Determine what you can afford,
and get just below. Spend money on RAM, case, and power supply...
something often overlooked.


I'll 3rd that WP:

The last mobo I had that was worth upgrading was a PacBell 133 -- I used
the "Evergreen" kit -- mx200 or such. Now, just plan to get work from the
mobo for
2-years, then feed it to a *nix varient for another 2-years ... then toss it!

rh
*********
 
I'd just go for what looks like best value today.
Over the last few years AMD systems have offered the easier upgrade path
because AMD has stuck with Socket A...Intel on the other hand brings out a
new CPU interface about every 12 months. They have had FCPGA, FCPGA2, Socket
423 and Socket 478 in the same time span that AMD has had only Socket A.
However AMD is now moving to the new 64 bit processor design so I'm not sure
how long they plan to keep production of Socket A going.
 
=|[ Marc's ]|= said:
Irrespective of which is the faster CPU, which one would you recommend if my
main goal is upgradability. I want to remove the old CPU and plug in a newer
CPU on the same mobo & RAM in the future.

ie, will the current socket A or socket 478 take faster processors in the
future?

The K6's were some upgrade for super socket 7 boards -going from pentium
mmx to AMD K6 was >tripling performance for ~80 dollars!
I cant anticipate an upgrade path for socket A because XP3200 is tops at
the moment and its said that there wont be faster releases because 64 bits
are out. Maybe AMD -or someone new, will bring out XP5000 with new
fabrication when the market has moved on -then it will take a while longer
for those to get cheap.

There seems to be possibilites with P4 mobos, buying a cheaper P4 now and
then upgrading to the current 'extreme' editions when they become bargains
-could be a big boost in year a from now.
How about finding a bargain dual P4 mobo and running two hyperthreading big
cache P4s on it next year when theyre affordable.

Drawing a tactical upgrade plan gets harder for those who buy the very best
when its still expensive, but if your buying behind the leading edge I
think it makes most sense.

Being a new platform, the AMD 64bit boards could be the best gamble now,
thinking of how early socket A boards went from athlon 800 to ~2000XP.

I dont know -too many variables to compare, but it is an aspect of system
building Im intrested in (avoiding dead ends)
 
Creeping said:
=|[ Marc's ]|= wrote:

Irrespective of which is the faster CPU, which one would you recommend if my
main goal is upgradability. I want to remove the old CPU and plug in a newer
CPU on the same mobo & RAM in the future.

ie, will the current socket A or socket 478 take faster processors in the
future?


The K6's were some upgrade for super socket 7 boards -going from pentium
mmx to AMD K6 was >tripling performance for ~80 dollars!
I cant anticipate an upgrade path for socket A because XP3200 is tops at
the moment and its said that there wont be faster releases because 64 bits
are out. Maybe AMD -or someone new, will bring out XP5000 with new
fabrication when the market has moved on -then it will take a while longer
for those to get cheap.

There seems to be possibilites with P4 mobos, buying a cheaper P4 now and
then upgrading to the current 'extreme' editions when they become bargains
-could be a big boost in year a from now.
How about finding a bargain dual P4 mobo and running two hyperthreading big
cache P4s on it next year when theyre affordable.

Dual P4 motherboards don't exist because P4 doesn't support SMP. Do you
mean dual Xeon?
 
=|[ P2B's ]|= said:
Creeping Stone wrote:
How about finding a bargain dual P4 mobo and running two hyperthreading big
cache P4s on it next year when theyre affordable.

Dual P4 motherboards don't exist because P4 doesn't support SMP. Do you
mean dual Xeon?
P4s are unknown to me, isnt there a way to botch some standard P4's to run
Dual like Athlon XP/MP? I like the idea of having Dual Hyperthreading
P4/Xeons with 4 times the usual interupt capability, that could benefit
smooth multitasking, avoid hangs when things crash /drivers stall.. I
imagine thats how it works.

Doesnt the P4 Extreme edition support SMP?
~might get to play with Pentiums next year.
 
Creeping Stone said:
=|[ P2B's ]|= said:
Creeping Stone wrote:
How about finding a bargain dual P4 mobo and running two hyperthreading big
cache P4s on it next year when theyre affordable.

Dual P4 motherboards don't exist because P4 doesn't support SMP. Do you
mean dual Xeon?
P4s are unknown to me, isnt there a way to botch some standard P4's to run
Dual like Athlon XP/MP? I like the idea of having Dual Hyperthreading
P4/Xeons with 4 times the usual interupt capability, that could benefit
smooth multitasking, avoid hangs when things crash /drivers stall.. I
imagine thats how it works.

Doesnt the P4 Extreme edition support SMP?
~might get to play with Pentiums next year.

The P4 extreme is just a rebadge of an existing P4 chip. It does not
support SMP. If you need SMP support your only choice in that line is
the Xeon, and the best bus speed you can get with the current crop is
533FSB.

As far as user experience goes, if you switch between a ton of apps
all the time, have many open at once, and are willing to spend the
money on some high end fast SCSI hard drives -- the dual Xeon system
will "appear" to you to be more responsive and faster for day in day
out things from the usability perspective. (Though a single P4 system
will do individual task faster. In some cases a dual is slower for
task, just in real world use you notice it's a little bit nicer
experience.) As far as upgrade paths, you can get a decent P4 board
with the 800FSB and throw a moderate P4 in it now and wait for them to
come down in price later. That's probably the best upgrade path on a
single. On a dual Xeon, those chips will almost never become cheap and
even if they did, the big improvement in those would be a 800FSB and
then you would be looking at a new dual processor MB to support
it...Not going to be cheap.)

Couldn't tell you about the AMD upgrade path. All I know is they are
changing the socket for the 64 from 940 to 939, and the 939 is
supposed to be hot. Big bucks either way.
 
Tim said:
Couldn't tell you about the AMD upgrade path. All I know is they are
changing the socket for the 64 from 940 to 939, and the 939 is
supposed to be hot. Big bucks either way.

The general picture is:

Athlon64 is Socket 754 will stay with Socket 754.

Opteron is Socket 940 only and will stay with Socket 940.

AthlonFX is Socket 939 and Socket 940 and will move to
Socket 939 only.


The full picture is a little more complicated than that.
For example, I think there is also currently a Socket 939
or Socket 940 version of the Athlon64 and I have no idea
whether that product will be continued.
 
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