future of 754, 939, 940

[Wahsapa]

because the memory controller is on the cpu, no amds arnt that memory(and memory channel) dependant.

when pci-e and ddr2 come out, my guess is that it will be a socket 939 only feature leaving sckt 754 in the past with dd1, this of course, isnt gonna happen until ddr2 is well established and at speeds high(preformance) enough to be worth the money.

and i doubt amd will be releasing a sckt 939 mobile...

 

[RockGuitarDude]

Originally posted by: Vee

Originally posted by: soicanstabyou
i've heard that 754 was being cycled down and 940 was going to be cycled out and that 939 is going to be the new standard socket for amd. is this true? with the high cost of 939 is it worth it so my computer will be upgradable in the future?

I've seen a lot of BS about this on websites. Anandtech included. AMD intends to keep all three sockets, for any amount of time that is worthy of consideration.
But is that really an issue? My position is that I've never once upgraded CPU only. When I was new at this, making my own, I paid a lot of attention to mainboard "quality" and features, trying to get it as future proof as possible. The result of that was expensive deluxe mainboards that became obsolete anyway.
I've never once judged it worthwhile to upgrade only cpu. These days I try get a mainboard more fitting my needs and more fitting the CPU. Cheap CPU, cheap mainboard. I'm amazed how well that strategy have played. Just my cents.

Above is someone who knows their sh*t.

 

[dmw16]

MaximumPC did an article about this, let me see if I can find it...of course I cannot find it. But if memory serves. s754 is gonna be for the cheaper line of duron replacements. s939 will be the home of the newest chips for the high end market, and s940 will eventually be faded out. They will support 940 for an indefinate period of time but chips will not come out as regularly as they will for s939.

 

[Gamingphreek]

If you wait until Nforce 4 comes out somehow it is supposed to support all 3. Dont ask mehow but thats just what i heard.

i would wait till Nforce 4 anyways as its supposed to be awesome and pick up some slack in the feature department as well as performance.

-Kevin

 

[saimike]

i've done some research on this since its time for me to upg my desktop. basically, as far as upgradability goes, the intel lga775-1066 and the amd s939 architecture r the way to go.

the fastest s754 a64 have been made already, and depending on how fast the new semprons r with respect to the fastest s754 a64 (3400+ perhaps? i forget), u might have no upg path in the future.

similarly, lga775-1066 was just announced so u know lga775-800 is at the end of the line ... while there might be a >4ghz prescott made for lga775-800, but nobody knows.

in conclusion, there really is no clear choice now to take ...

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: dmw16
MaximumPC did an article about this, let me see if I can find it...of course I cannot find it. But if memory serves. s754 is gonna be for the cheaper line of duron replacements. s939 will be the home of the newest chips for the high end market, and s940 will eventually be faded out. They will support 940 for an indefinate period of time but chips will not come out as regularly as they will for s939.

Socket 940 is AMD's server line. It's not going anywhere, and will likely continue to match Socket939 in terms of clockspeeds (since a Socket939 A64 and an Opteron1XX are essentially identical).

Socket754, while it's not going "away" in the immediate future, is unlikely to ever get chips faster than the 3700+.

 

[blakeatwork]

Based on a chat I had with one of the Engineering guys st the Server Symposium (Edward), s754 is to remain in place for about the next 18 months, and will be used for the "new" AXP's (400FSB/256K L2), in order to provide a "low-end" chip to compete with Celeron-D's...

s939 will be the mainstream board of choice for 64-bit users, and should feature a lot of overclocking potential, based on manufacturer of course.

s940 will also stay, for the Opteron side, as mentioned already.

So far as Edward was concerned, that was Gospel.. of course, everything changes.. s939 reight now is being prepped in order to accomodate the Dual-Core CPU's coming next year, but that's "hearsay" according to Edward.

In short, s939 will probably be the way to go. Just save some extra pennies.

 

[TennBikeBerk]

Check this out - http://ricserv.servebeer.com/amd64.php

 

[Ryoga]

It seems odd to me that with the major selling point of the AMD64 being the on-die memory control hub and HyperTransport that dual channel would not be important. The theories I've seen so far relate to the fact that AMD's gaming performance is primarily related to how the AMD processor doesn't get chocked by the memory bus. Maybe a single channel is enough with HT... I've never been able to find a comparison of memory bandwidth and gaming performance s754, s939 single channel, and s939 dual channel.

In any case, s754 feels like gimped technology to me. Technology on death row (like AGP Pro). I'd rather save my money and go with an XP 3000+/3200+ and wait for PCI Express and DDR2. But then I feel that way about s939, too, but only because it's so expensive right now.

 

[biostud]

The s940 will as previously stated be around for servers with opterons and will also support dual-core opterons
The s754 will probably be around for quite some time for the Semprons (low-end) (with the A64 core w/o 64-bit support)
The s939 will fill the rest of the market , and in the future support PCI-e, DDR-2 and Dualcore processors

 

[RockGuitarDude]

Seriously, who just upgrades a cpu. The safest route IMO is to go with whats most practical at the moment. Right now 754 is more economical, especially with the price drops making the 3200+ and 3400+ much more attainable. The 939 3500+ barely edges out the 3400+ if at all so whats the point. If you are going to fool yourself that you will upgrade the cpu, it is your own fault. The best thing to do IMO is buy some RAM that will definately be tranferable to the next system. 2 of the same stick would be a good idea so you could run dual channel when needed if you upgrade. If you buy some pc4000, you will be covered until HT gets above 2ghz or it moves to ddr 2.

 

[saimike]

actually, i did. i bought my 440bx bf6 in '99 with a oc'd c366. in 2001-2002, i put in a c1100. if u can get a mobo combo to last that long with the correctly chosen socket architecture, u can save some money from avoiding an upgrade cycle or 2.

with the introduction of semprons, the s754 does look good for now. i'm just waiting for some s939 cpu's to drop further so i can go with that and make my investment last just that much longer. the diff might not be huge, but with the s939 i hv a choice of sempron or a64.

 

[Regs]

My simple answer is this, 939 will be worth it in a year. For now, you can play Doom 3 on a 754 with a 6800 or x800 at 1600x1200 res High Quality. And likely the same for Half Life 2 and STALKER. As of right now, way too pricy.

 

[NightCrawler]

Socket A isn't even dead yet

and the Athlon 2500 performs great with Windows XP, games, apps, etc.

Cost: dirt cheap

 

[imported_jediknight]

S939 CPUs are just way too expensive nowadays (well, not as much so with the pricedrop.. but still..), IMO.
S754 is the way to go (besides, the few hundred dollars you save getting a cheaper CPU will easily buy the S939 - or succesor - mobo of your next CPU..)

 

[magomago]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
I don't believe Socket 939 is ripe yet.

When it gets PCI-Express and DDR2, then it'll be worth it, IMO.

And you thik PCIE and DDR2 ARE ripe....

I think by the time DDR and PCI show benefits (or if the market just shoved towards it because of marketing such as the current trend with SATA drives) and yield tangible preformance increases...AMD will support it. Until then it is just costly technology that is not competitive for its price.

 

[NOX]

Originally posted by: Dug

Originally posted by: Tostada

Originally posted by: Penth
How long until s939 prices will be near s754? 5 Months? Of course, I realize you would all be speculating, but I'm probably going to build around then. Just wondering.

The AV8 is already down to $145, which is the same price as a K8N Socket 754 until about two weeks ago. That's pretty good, seeing as they can't keep Socket 939 boards on the shelves and could charge just about whatever they want. I'd say that in a month they'll be shipping enough that the price will be perfectly reasonable.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-127-181

Actually they are down to $134 at Newegg. Not bad, but I'm waiting for an Abit Nforce3 939 board.

Now down to $119.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
If you wait until Nforce 4 comes out somehow it is supposed to support all 3. Dont ask mehow but thats just what i heard.

i would wait till Nforce 4 anyways as its supposed to be awesome and pick up some slack in the feature department as well as performance.

-Kevin

You misunderstood. The chipset itself will be for all 3 Socket Types, but that doesn't mean a(single) NForce based motherboard will be compatible with all three Socket Types. It just means the Chipset can be used on 3 different platforms(which is somewhat true of current A64 chipsets(having compatibility with more than 1 platform, IIRC).