FINALLY. I ordered three at the end of August...and JUST got
off the phone with Onvia. They confirmed they're in stock
and mine will finally ship out.
Agnivarsh: As someone noted, slotkets allow you to use a PPGA or
FCPGA format chip on a motherboard that only supports "slot
1". Slot 1, PPGA and FCPGA are all PHYSICAL chip formats.
Motherboards are generally designed to accept only either
Slot 1 or else PPGA/FCPGA format chips. To use PPGA or FCPGA
chips on a Slot 1 motherboard, you need the slotket.
Why would you want to? 1) If you want to use a celeron, modern
celerons ONLY come as PPGA or FCPGA. If you want to use one
on a Slot 1 motherboard, you have no choice. 2) Most Pentium III
chips come in both FCPGA and Slot 1 variants. The difference is
that the FCPGA version is generally cheaper--sometimes a lot
cheaper (they're cheaper for Intel to produce). So if you
are shopping for the cheapest, say, 700Mhz PIII chip, you can
save some bucks buying the FCPGA version and placing it on
a slotket. 3) Some slotkets allow you to adjust the voltage
and/or front side bus speeds that will apply to the chip on
the slotket. These features can be valuable if you want to
overclock, or if you want to use chips that for some reason
are not supported natively by your motherboard. For example,
with the right slotket, you might be able to use a Coppermine
(current Intel line) chip on a board that was designed before
Coppermines existed, and hence does not natively support the
lower voltages required by these chips.
Kwad