[citation][nom]blahman11[/nom]They misread that apparently. The world isn't going to end its the end of an era apparently. Anyway the mayans didn't count leap years so actually the world should have ended about 9 months ago now I think. Sorry about that. Well intel are just continuing their progression on CPUs. I hope their planned socket change isn't set in stone, surely there's nothing stopping Haswell being able to be put in LGA1155?[/citation]
Think of it this way (and this is their argument, not mine). If you are buying a brand new CPU for a gaming rig, do you really want it choked by 3 year old ram, 3 year old buss speeds, and be forced to update your firmware (which may brick a perfectly good board... though the process has gotten better over the years)? While I do not entirely agree with this outlook, I do understand that they are on top right now, and they do not want to get a bad name for having chips that phisically fit, but may have the wrong voltages, firmware, or feature sets to work perfectly right. By changing the interface every 2-3 years (regardless of necessity), it saves them a ton of support time explaining that 'had you purchased a different board, with the same chip-set, your new CPU would work, but the one you purchased does not'.
As it is, you slap it in, and it works, and there is no better PR than that. Updating the firmware may unlock some features, but for the most part the chip will work regardless.