socket life span

[HedBang]

OK boys. I'm trying to avoid an open ended AMD vs Intel debate here so I'm asking a specific question. Maybe the answer isn't so specific though. It's been a while since I've built a machine so I've been out of the loop a while.

The more I read about this the more I think I know the answer but it doesnt hurt to ask.

When it comes to socket lifespan, is it safe to say an i5/i7 mobo will leave me more CPU upgrade options in the future than AMD AM3? Though I've had good luck with AMD in the past, they seem to change things up more often. I'm not one that will always need cutting edge technology but I want to choose a mobo that will give me CPU upgrade options down the road. I'll worry about comparing the other details later.

thanks

 

[Phynaz]

There's no way to predict the future.

Further than socket compatibility is motherboard/BIOS compatibility which gets even trickier.

Frankly, just buy what you want and don't worry about CPU upgrades. By the time a CPU upgrade is cost effective, you'll want an entirely new system anyway.

 

[Ayah]

i5 is a dead end, for sure. i7 will supposedly have 6-core compatibilities.

 

[themusgrat]

The AM3 is the one that will support 6 core CPUs, along with most likely I7. I5 is the only one really that will be limited to quad core. I wouldn't count it out though, Intel just launched the I5 series a few weeks ago... All chipsets have at least a few years of life in them.

 

[Ratman6161]

Originally posted by: Ayah
i5 is a dead end, for sure. i7 will supposedly have 6-core compatibilities.

Ummm...you aren't trying to say that i5 and i7 are types of socket are you? Actually those designations do not refer to a socket. There is LGA 1156 which is the socket used by the i5 (750) and the 8 series i7's (such as the 860 and 870). Then there LGA 1366 which is used by the 9 series i7's (920 and up).

It's 1366 that is supposed to support the 6 core cpu's but that does not mean existing lga 1366 motherboards will work. When the core 2 duo came out, even though it was lga775 it didn't work with all existing 775 motherboards and even for those where it did work, a bios update was needed.

 

[alyarb]

i doubt we'll see any more of lynnfield, but 1156 certainly has a future if this die shot of the sandy bridge is accurate.

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/09-07-06/18a.jpg

there's no reason why this architecture should be on a new socket, however I seriously doubt it will be compatible with P55. and we cant say whether future X-series chipsets won't be backwards compatible with bloomfield or not, either. technically they should, since the system agent is on-chip.

AM3 should take AMD into 32nm as well.

 

[frostedflakes]

1156 is Intel's budget/mainstream socket. This means that it won't get hexa-core initially, but once hexa is replaced at the high-end by octa or whatever, I don't see why Intel wouldn't introduce them on 1156.

I'd imagine AMD and Intel will stick with AM3 and 1156/1366 until DDR4 is available, which is supposed to be in 2012. And it's possible they may make DDR4 processors backwards compatible with old sockets like AMD did with AM3 CPUs and Socket AM2/AM2+.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: HedBang
OK boys. I'm trying to avoid an open ended AMD vs Intel debate here so I'm asking a specific question. Maybe the answer isn't so specific though. It's been a while since I've built a machine so I've been out of the loop a while.

The more I read about this the more I think I know the answer but it doesnt hurt to ask.

When it comes to socket lifespan, is it safe to say an i5/i7 mobo will leave me more CPU upgrade options in the future than AMD AM3? Though I've had good luck with AMD in the past, they seem to change things up more often. I'm not one that will always need cutting edge technology but I want to choose a mobo that will give me CPU upgrade options down the road. I'll worry about comparing the other details later.

thanks

No.

At most it will drag u though 32nm, and then intel will spank us with a arch. as well as a socket platform change.

Right now u would need to see if ur a gamer or a cruncher. If your a gamer, the gpu sector is your life and blood. The cpu will have very little impact on games, unless it was poorly written and very very cpu intensive.
(only a hand select games i can think of that would fall in that catigory.)

If your a gamer, u want what will offer you the most 16x slots, because those wont get upgraded anytime soon.

If your a cruncher... well your screwed either way because cpu's will always come out, and crunchers have an annoying addiction at getting something faster.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: alyarb
i doubt we'll see any more of lynnfield, but 1156 certainly has a future if this die shot of the sandy bridge is accurate.

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/09-07-06/18a.jpg

there's no reason why this architecture should be on a new socket, however I seriously doubt it will be compatible with P55. and we cant say whether future X-series chipsets won't be backwards compatible with bloomfield or not, either. technically they should, since the system agent is on-chip.

AM3 should take AMD into 32nm as well.

According to the same source that leaked the Sandy Bridge die, it'll have LGA1155 socket that is not electrically compatible. For one thing, Sandy Bridge is supposed to bring 8.5GT/s QPI(current Bloomfields have 6.4GT/s).

 

[drizek]

AM2 will have had the longest lifespan, but you are buying into the tail end of it here so that won't do you much good. I think it is up in the air whether 1156 will support anything after Clarkdale, and it is up in the air whether AMD will release 32nm Phenoms or not.

 

[ilkhan]

both s1156 and s1366 will have sandy upgrades available. Some may require a new board with same socket (as Intel is apt to do), but probably just a bios update. There's no reason for Intel to release a new socket until the next memory standard comes out, QPI is plenty and they can ratchet the speed of DMI (double or triple at least) fairly easily. With the memory controller and GPU being in the CPU socket (or via QPI, but Intel is happy with QPI's width), Intel doesn't NEED to add bandwidth to the southbridge connection. If anything Id say they'll be power limited before they are bandwidth limited by the SB (most USB/SATA connections don't go to/from the CPU, they stay on the southbridge.)

Edit: we'll see 8 and/or 6 and/or 4 core chips on s1366, and dual and/or quad chips on s1156. We may see >4 core chips on s1156, but I doubt it. Maybe with Ivy. I wish Intel had given some new codenames on sandy today at IDF. Maybe before its over.

 

[alyarb]

QPI is certainly not coming to the "i5" sandy segment. the QPI bus is for socket-to-socket or I/O hub communication such as on server boards. X58 is the outlier in this case because it doesn't have on-die PCIe, and the Sandy Bridge's bloomfield counterpart may also lack PCIe. i also agree about ivy bridge being the earliest possible "mainstream 8-core."

 

[boran]

Originally posted by: Phynaz
[...]
Frankly, just buy what you want and don't worry about CPU upgrades. By the time a CPU upgrade is cost effective, you'll want an entirely new system anyway.

QFT

This has been the case with all my systems, from my athlon 1.2 to my P4 2.4 to the Athlon 3500+ and now the i7 920 I have never been able to keep the motherboard.

Why the attachment to the mobo anyways ? it's not even the most expensive component of an upgrade.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: boran

Originally posted by: Phynaz
[...]
Frankly, just buy what you want and don't worry about CPU upgrades. By the time a CPU upgrade is cost effective, you'll want an entirely new system anyway.

QFT

This has been the case with all my systems, from my athlon 1.2 to my P4 2.4 to the Athlon 3500+ and now the i7 920 I have never been able to keep the motherboard.

Why the attachment to the mobo anyways ? it's not even the most expensive component of an upgrade.

I've upgraded CPUs on existing mobos several times. I moved from an E6400 on Asus P965 mobo to a Q6700, which was a pretty big upgrade. Also moved from a Socket 939 3200+ to a Socket 939 Opteron 165 on a DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI board, which is still a pretty decent system to this day.

There's nothing wrong with desiring the ability to have some drop-in upgrade options, but on the other hand, people shouldn't flip out if things don't turn out that way.

I would have to guess that a DDR3 1156/1366/AM3 board from a major maker (Asus, Gigabyte, etc) released right now should support at least a few upcoming CPUs, possibly including some major updates for 6 or 8 cores, etc.

The major killers to CPU compatibility tend to be : major voltage/power changes, and memory access changes.

 

[Munky]

IMO, both AM3 and lga1366 will have more upgrade options that lga1156. Does it matter? The lga1156 cpu's are still faster than anything AMD has on AM3. Maybe when AMD has 6-cores they'll tie or beat an i7 with HT, but how many cores do you really need? If gaming is your primary use, 4 cores is plenty and you still want fastest single thread performance as opposed to having 6 or 8 cores with slower performance per core. So unless you have specific reasons to worry about socket life span, buy whatever fits your budget, can't go wrong with any of the current options.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Phynaz
Frankly, just buy what you want and don't worry about CPU upgrades. By the time a CPU upgrade is cost effective, you'll want an entirely new system anyway.

I've never been able to reuse a motherboard either. Even when using the same socket number, I couldn't use the same board. Athlon 1700+ socket A had a 133mhz bus but Athlon 2500+ socket A had a 166mhz bus. Old 775 used 800mhz bus while newer 775 used 1066mhz bus. I think some might even use 1333mhz bus but I'm not sure about that.

It doesn't really matter that much since the motherboard is one of the cheapest parts of the computer anyway. You put a $200-300 CPU in a $60 motherboard and your main concern is the motherboard? wtf? Video card is at least $100-200 if you're a gamer. Even the memory is more expensive than the board if you're like me and try to use as much as possible. 8gb of DDR3 is much more expensive than the motherboard.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Phynaz
Frankly, just buy what you want and don't worry about CPU upgrades. By the time a CPU upgrade is cost effective, you'll want an entirely new system anyway.

I've never been able to reuse a motherboard either. Even when using the same socket number, I couldn't use the same board. Athlon 1700+ socket A had a 133mhz bus but Athlon 2500+ socket A had a 166mhz bus. Old 775 used 800mhz bus while newer 775 used 1066mhz bus. I think some might even use 1333mhz bus but I'm not sure about that.

It doesn't really matter that much since the motherboard is one of the cheapest parts of the computer anyway. You put a $200-300 CPU in a $60 motherboard and your main concern is the motherboard? wtf? Video card is at least $100-200 if you're a gamer. Even the memory is more expensive than the board if you're like me and try to use as much as possible. 8gb of DDR3 is much more expensive than the motherboard.

I don't put $200-$300 Cpus into $60 mobos

I think I usually pay $100-$150 for mobos. I *try* to keep the CPU cost into the $200 range, but sometimes I'll make an exception.

There are some decent $60ish mobos out there, particularly for AMD builds, but generally the overclocking and durability isn't there to any significant degree. I have seen a lot of bulged/popped caps on cheapish mobos after a year or two of service, which is why I tend to look at the upper midrange for solid-state caps and a higher degree of overclocking support and bios support for new processor releases.

There are people running E8400s and Q9xxx series on 2006-era P965 boards, with decent overclocks to boot! Similarly, there are people running Phenom II's on old AM2+ boards with no issues.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Arkaign


I don't put $200-$300 Cpus into $60 mobos

BWAHAHAHAHHAHAa


What about a 1500 dollar cpu in a 300 dollar motherboard?

That raito is worse... :X

 

[deimos3428]

is it safe to say an i5/i7 mobo will leave me more CPU upgrade options in the future than AMD AM3?

No, it isn't safe to say either way. Both are very new.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
I don't put $200-$300 Cpus into $60 mobos

I don't see why not. The only motherboard failures I've seen in my entire life were caused by the now famous capacitor plague. I can still remember the model of the board that died twice on me because of this - Gigabyte 7VTXE.

There are some decent $60ish mobos out there, particularly for AMD builds, but generally the overclocking and durability isn't there to any significant degree. I have seen a lot of bulged/popped caps on cheapish mobos after a year or two of service, which is why I tend to look at the upper midrange for solid-state caps and a higher degree of overclocking support and bios support for new processor releases.

When you buy an i7 or Phenom II X4 from a company like Dell or HP, you can be fairly certain that they're still using the worst motherboards they can find, and these computers still last forever. When capacitors blow, it's usually a defect in the capacitors.

Believe it or not, cheap motherboards really are rated to support high end processors. If you search newegg's AMD boards for "Phenom II", the cheapest board is $45 and it says that it supports Phenom II X4 as well as original Phenom X4 processors (but the HT bus is slow as hell). The price jumps to $55 if you want the full 2600mhz hypertransport. $60 if you want 4 memory slots instead of 2. $70 if you want 16gb memory limit instead of 8gb. From there it goes up based on chipset, if it has Crossfire/SLI, and a few other things. Searching Intel boards for "quad" starts at $41 and has the same general progression of features; SLI starts at $100 while Crossfire starts at $135.

I'm not saying that anyone is wrong. I'm just saying it's perfectly ok to use a cheap motherboard with an expensive processor. As long as the board is rated for that processor and it has all the features you want, it will work great. I've had a $400 video card and $300 CPU plugged into a $100 motherboard and so far it hasn't exploded after about 3 years (purchased November 2006).

 

[alyarb]

absolutely. if asrock or foxconn made a $130 x58 board with 6 DIMMs i would be all over it. for that money, i will cool the VRMs myself. with the exception of 2 oz Cu PCBs or solid-state capacitors, every single $250+ X58 board is packed with nothing but fru-fru bullshit (and some don't even give you the copper PCB).

you can be damn sure $800 i7 machines from OEMs use the cheapest motherboards they can find, and with lynnfield in town the motherboards will be even cheaper for them.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

I don't put $200-$300 Cpus into $60 mobos

It depends on the motherboard. My Gigabyte P965 easily clocked to 500FSB with my E6400 and managed a stable 3.4ghz overclock, with my Corsair XMS ram going from 667 to 1000ghz to boot. That board cost me $90 at launch and the cpu near $200 iirc.

My other board was a Gigabyte P35-UD3L also cost me $90 and maxed out my Q6600 @ 3.4ghz ($300 CDN cpu when I bought it) at 378 FSB. But I realize that P35 boards didn't fare so well with 45nm Penryns in the 430+ FSB range. Today, the main difference between a $100 board and a $150+ board ultimately comes down to features (# of SATA ports, eSATA ports, SLi/CF support, power circuitry cooling, etc.). There is less worry with caps going faulty since in the last 2-3 years most boards already had 'solid state' caps. However, for a maximum overclock with the lowest voltage, there is little doubt that a full featured $250-300 board will outperform the $100 board. However, for 95% of us, this is not an issue.

For instance, right now most P55 boards will do 200-210 Base clock, easily maxing out a Core i7 860 on air cooling.

 

[arcas]

I'm not sure it makes sense to worry about whether one socket will have a longer lifespan than another unless you plan to upgrade your CPU every few months. If your upgrade cycle is on the order of a year or two, chances are whatever mainboard you buy today will pale in comparison to those available when you upgrade and so even if you could simply drop the new CPU into your old board, you'll be tempted to replace it anyway.

Don't waste your time fretting over what CPUs might be available 18 months from now. Buy a board with the features you know you'll use through the near future.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: arcas
Don't waste your time fretting over what CPUs might be available 18 months from now. Buy a board with the features you know you'll use through the near future.

And round up. I'm kicking myself because I didn't spend the extra $10-20 to get the motherboard that supports 8gb of memory instead of 4gb.

 

[sandorski]

Historically speaking, AMD has had the better track record on this issue. That certainly is no guarantee of what the future brings though.