Is Socket A Dead?

[mordrid52]

I just finished reading Anandtechs AMD roadmap article, and I noticed there is no mention of Socket A. Is the 3200+ going to be the end of the line for Socket A?

 

[RussianSensation]

athlon 3200+ was going to be the last socket A cpu like 1 year ago where have you been

That is why you have the new 754, 940 and 939 sockets to continue the evolution of the processors....cant be upset though socket A lasted for years...

 

[SuperStrokey]

I wouldnt say dead, but darn close. Many of the chips in it still perform very well. But if consider possible upgrades then there really isnt any. Socket A has been around for forever so its about time that it went the way of the dodo.

 

[Ikonomi]

CPU sockets don't die; they just fade away. If you'll look at this part of AMD's 2004 roadmap, you'll see that there are apparently two Socket A chips -- new flavors of the XP 2800+ and 3000+ -- scheduled for the third quarter. Of course, this goes against my prediction, which was that AMD would stop development of the Socket A platform, leaving the current line of Athlon XP and Duron processors to do their thing.

So no, not dead yet. I guess Socket A is just in the process of making a graceful exit of some sort. It was time for a changing of the guard anyway.

 

[mechBgon]

I think those new 2800+'s and 3000+'s are Socket754 AthlonXPs that are using a Hammer core but locked to 32-bit mode, so they'll use Socket 754 boards. I could be -->

At any rate, if by "dead" you mean that there won't be any faster-rated AthlonXPs for Socket A, then it is probably dead, yeah. If you mean that there won't be CPUs and mobos to buy, it's going to be a while yet.

 

[pspada]

I'm still selling them, and will continue to do so as long as they are available.

 

[myocardia]

Okay, maybe Socket A will be dead soon, but is was good while it lasted!

 

[XeoBllaze]

Dead as in nothing new yeah

 

[jiffylube1024]

They're still the best deal around for cheap PC's when someone doesn't need a PC that's too powerful but is still relatively up to date.

 

[joe4324]

Well it depends on what you mean by "DEAD", I think its still going to be a VERY viable platform for gaming for the better part of 2004. It wont be "AS GOOD" as the best, but it wont cost nearly as much either.

I've got a 1700+ that I can get to 2.2Ghz on air, and a Epox Nforce2 mobo, I have no compelling reason to upgrade this setup now, and I'll probably hold off for a decent portion of 2004, I'd like to see the 2nd/3rd gen chipsets come out and I want see what socket is going to be 'the one that lasts' then at that point I'll probably jump in on it.

Its hard to beat a $70 Nforce2 and a $70 CPU, for socket A right now that when tweaked with put you in the same ball park of performance as a $400 A64 chip. the money you save could get you a serious vid card upgrade.

 

[aka1nas]

It seems a little silly for them to lock the new AthlonXP to 32bits if it originally a 64bit athlon64 as they should be trying to get marketshare for x84-64 and furthermore it doesn't offer any performance benefit yet as their XP for x86-64 isn't out yet. And if it isn't a someone disabled athlon64, then it again seems silly for them to now produce it also on socket A as it doesn't take anymore fab space as it could be the same core with an extra memory controller added on.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
It seems a little silly for them to lock the new AthlonXP to 32bits if it originally a 64bit athlon64 as they should be trying to get marketshare for x84-64 and furthermore it doesn't offer any performance benefit yet as their XP for x86-64 isn't out yet. And if it isn't a someone disabled athlon64, then it again seems silly for them to now produce it also on socket A as it doesn't take anymore fab space as it could be the same core with an extra memory controller added on.

I somewhat agree, AMD should try to flood the market with 64bit processors as much as possible. OTOH, if making 32bit only cpus allows them to sell cpus unable(due to manufacturing glitches) run in 64bit mode or if those cpus can be produced really cheaply, then it might make more sense.

 

[aka1nas]

I would think that disabling "64-bitness" is much different than disabling defective blocks of cache. They would be more or less disabling half of all the ALU and FPU registers, right? It seems that the percentage of cores that they would be able to save from the garbage heap this way is pretty minimal. Also, what would they be doing with their 32-bit Athlon fabs? I haven't heard anything about converting them all to .09micron. I would think that it makes more sense for them to make another 32 bit athlon core and maybe just stick a memory controller on-die or maybe even off-die if it could be cost effective. Either way, it seems silly to have socket 754 chips that aren't 64-bit.

Edit: Woot! made golden member!

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
I would think that disabling "64-bitness" is much different than disabling defective blocks of cache. They would be more or less disabling half of all the ALU and FPU registers, right? It seems that the percentage of cores that they would be able to save from the garbage heap this way is pretty minimal. Also, what would they be doing with their 32-bit Athlon fabs? I haven't heard anything about converting them all to .09micron. I would think that it makes more sense for them to make another 32 bit athlon core and maybe just stick a memory controller on-die or maybe even off-die if it could be cost effective. Either way, it seems silly to have socket 754 chips that aren't 64-bit.

Ya, I can't see that the amount of defective chips would warrant it either, but you never know. AMD must have a good reason to do this though, I think. Perhaps they are just keeping theior options open for now, waiting to see how the market reacts to things. If the 32bit cpus fail to generate enough interest they can just can them.

 

[joe4324]

Does anyone think that AMD might seek to go with SFF/Thin Client and low Profile with the Socket A interface? much like what via has done with *cough* cyrix? Reguardless of how slow the platform is the market on those C3 chips running in a Socket 370 board is growing. and I think it shows no signs of slowing. I would love to see amd produce (internally or otherwise) a super small low power consumption core logic set then see if they can take a duron and make it only use 10watts of power and be handled with a passive heatsink. I think this would be awesome. if at all possible

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
I would think that disabling "64-bitness" is much different than disabling defective blocks of cache. They would be more or less disabling half of all the ALU and FPU registers, right? It seems that the percentage of cores that they would be able to save from the garbage heap this way is pretty minimal. Also, what would they be doing with their 32-bit Athlon fabs? I haven't heard anything about converting them all to .09micron. I would think that it makes more sense for them to make another 32 bit athlon core and maybe just stick a memory controller on-die or maybe even off-die if it could be cost effective. Either way, it seems silly to have socket 754 chips that aren't 64-bit.

Edit: Woot! made golden member!

Nah, it should be relatively easy to disable operating modes. I believe there are only 3 pins that determine 32 or 64-bit operating modes. Just disconnect one of them and you've got an Athlon with a couple extra pipeline stages. I don't know if you could stick the die in a socket A package, but 754 should be no problem.

 

[aka1nas]

Thanks for the info, Sahakiel. I didn't even think that they might already have control pins to enable or disable 64 bit mode but that sounds reasonable.

 

[jswjimmy]

socket a is not quite dead when the 64 hits $150 i say its dead.

 

[aka1nas]

I think when they have a socket 754 budget chip under $100 or so socket A will be dead.

 

[Pistolero]

Aye $ rules all

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: aka1nas
It seems a little silly for them to lock the new AthlonXP to 32bits if it originally a 64bit athlon64 as they should be trying to get marketshare for x84-64 and furthermore it doesn't offer any performance benefit yet as their XP for x86-64 isn't out yet. And if it isn't a someone disabled athlon64, then it again seems silly for them to now produce it also on socket A as it doesn't take anymore fab space as it could be the same core with an extra memory controller added on.

I somewhat agree, AMD should try to flood the market with 64bit processors as much as possible. OTOH, if making 32bit only cpus allows them to sell cpus unable(due to manufacturing glitches) run in 64bit mode or if those cpus can be produced really cheaply, then it might make more sense.

Yeah, as long as it smacks Celery around so handily why kill it off anytime soon? Especially since there are such great full featured sktA boards for under a 100$ like the NF7-s