Is x38 worth the wait?

[capthook]

After reading up on the x38, I'm wondering what the real benefits will be.

PCIe 2.0 sounds awesome, but will it actually show any benefits even with today's high end cards? 2.5 vs 5 g/s looks like a huge improvement, but nothings running that fast anyways is it? What are the other benefits of waiting for a x38 board? (besides ddr3 support?)

I ask because I'll be building a new machine in the next few months and am starting to piece together what I want and if this is the way to go as I'd like to be able to keep upgrading gradually (add ram, swap gpu, etc.) over the next 3+ years. Thanks for educating me guys.

 

[miahallen]

I'm hoping they'll surprise us with SLI support, but I'm not holding my breath!

It will have 2 PCIe x16 slots presumably for crossfire support, as opossed to the P35 which is only 1 PCIe x16 and 1 PCIe x4.

 

[NamronSllim]

Try not to piece together save your money and buy it all at once. Hardware can change in the blink of an eye.

 

[capthook]

Try not to piece together save your money and buy it all at once. Hardware can change in the blink of an eye.

Maybe I misspoke... I'm planning on building a system from the ground up for today (midrange, $1k in july/sept 07 dollars) but I want it to be future-proof, so to speak (not that it will last like a high end system will, but that in 2 years I can hopefully pop in a better cpu/ram/gpu/whatever without doing a total rebuild)

 

[miahallen]

In that case, wait for AMD's new CPUs and AM2+ mobos....AMD has a MUCH BETTER track record for supporting backward compatability

 

[Crashman]

In that case, wait for AMD's new CPUs and AM2+ mobos....AMD has a MUCH BETTER track record for supporting backward compatability

Hardly. Socket 939 got dropped while people were still begging for new processors. I've had a bunch of old Socket A boards that didn't support newer Socket A processors due to a change in the electrical standard. And if you go back that far, Socket 370 processors would fit Slot 1 boards using an adapter, while Socket A to Slot A adapters weren't feasable.

 

[rammedstein]

...above poster, yeah, that was bad of amd, but intels is worse... although i do have a feeling that 775 will be around for a while, i also think that 1207 will be around for longer because of the hyper transport links instead of an fsb.

 

[miahallen]

In that case, wait for AMD's new CPUs and AM2+ mobos....AMD has a MUCH BETTER track record for supporting backward compatability

Hardly. Socket 939 got dropped while people were still begging for new processors.
True, I'm one of them...but I didn't say their track record was perfect, I said it was better [than Intel's].

 

[Crashman]

I did a socket change to specification change a while back and found AMD to be at best equal to Intel when it came to compatibility.

 

[Slobogob]

Try not to piece together save your money and buy it all at once. Hardware can change in the blink of an eye.

Maybe I misspoke... I'm planning on building a system from the ground up for today (midrange, $1k in july/sept 07 dollars) but I want it to be future-proof, so to speak (not that it will last like a high end system will, but that in 2 years I can hopefully pop in a better cpu/ram/gpu/whatever without doing a total rebuild) I doubt that Socket 775 will do you that favor. The 45nm CPUS will work but two years from their release Intel will have the integrated Memory controller and thus your mainboard will be obsolete. It´s like the current mainboards that won´t support the new 45nm CPUs because of the VRM - it was the same when conroe made it to market. While Intel indeed has the performance crown, AMDs offerings may prove to be more "future proof". Then again, go cheap on the mainboard and buy a newone once you upgrade in 2 years.

 

[hippopotamus]

Off topic....

Speaking of the ever changing sockets, I kinda remember (it was a long time ago though) that manufacturers tried to make their sockets backward compatible with older processors. Sockets had more holes than CPU pins and depending on the kind of processor the CPU would fit only one way, the rest was figured out by the firmware.
What's up with that?

 

[Slobogob]

Off topic....

Speaking of the ever changing sockets, I kinda remember (it was a long time ago though) that manufacturers tried to make their sockets backward compatible with older processors. Sockets had more holes than CPU pins and depending on the kind of processor the CPU would fit only one way, the rest was figured out by the firmware.
What's up with that?

With processor prices falling through the floor, intel makes its money by selling chipsets. I doubt that the average office PC will receive any CPU upgrades at all and thus the only upgraders that are relevant are in the server space. Switching the socket and/or changing the pin count and/or the VRM is a good way to get people to buy new boards.
Thinking about it, the "upgraders" market seems to small to be of any interest to either AMD or Intel. If one of them happens to release a new CPU that by accident fits in an older socket, they advertise it as a feature. In the past upgrading might have been a little more interesting but the market changed and components became quite cheap.

 

[capthook]

I doubt that Socket 775 will do you that favor. The 45nm CPUS will work but two years from their release Intel will have the integrated Memory controller and thus your mainboard will be obsolete. It´s like the current mainboards that won´t support the new 45nm CPUs because of the VRM - it was the same when conroe made it to market. While Intel indeed has the performance crown, AMDs offerings may prove to be more "future proof". Then again, go cheap on the mainboard and buy a newone once you upgrade in 2 years.

Interesting...so go with a cheap mobo in a few months and go for quality elsewhere then? I'm guessing that there isn't going to be cheap 45nm and x38 stuff in sept, but that would push today's tech way down right?

Realistically, any sort of midrange system I put together today should be more than adequate for most gaming for the next 2 years....right?

 

[fredgiblet]

After reading up on the x38, I'm wondering what the real benefits will be.

Probably pretty minor, the difference between the uppermid range and the high-end is usually not that big while the cost increase is usually prohibitive.

PCIe 2.0 sounds awesome, but will it actually show any benefits even with today's high end cards?

No, we don't yet even need PCI-e 16x, 8x would do just fine. By the time PCI-e 2.0 becomes needed you will probably be on your next board anyway.

What are the other benefits of waiting for a x38 board? (besides ddr3 support?)

DDR3 probably won't be much value unless you are running quad-core with a multi-threaded program, given the extra cost and difficulty finding it now and in the near future it's definitely not worth it. The only other benefit from the X38 (AFAIK) is "removing overspeed protection" as to what that is and how it works I don't know.

I ask because I'll be building a new machine in the next few months and am starting to piece together what I want and if this is the way to go as I'd like to be able to keep upgrading gradually (add ram, swap gpu, etc.) over the next 3+ years. Thanks for educating me guys.

DDR2 will probably still be available for the next few years at decent prices but DDR3 will probably be cheaper in 2 years or so. PCI-e 2.0 probably won't be necessary until 2 years from now or so. All in all I don't think it's going to be worth the extra money or the wait (until Q3) for an X38.

 

[capthook]

Alright, this was pretty much what I was thinking. Thanks a lot for the straight answers.