When will Intel drop the 775 socket?

[funnyvlad]

I am wondering cause I don´t want to buy a new computer with 775 socket if Intel is planning to replace it with another socket q2 2008. I know that you will advise me to change the mobo but I´m not a skilled person and that will be too hard and too expensive.

 

[misiu_mp]

If you NEED a new computer NOW then you should not care about sockets and buy whatever there is that fits your needs NOW.
If you can wait then you dont need it. Save money and buy yourself something else. A bike for instance. Or a ring for your girlfriend,

 

[halcyon]

If you NEED a new computer NOW then you should not care about sockets and buy whatever there is that fits your needs NOW.
If you can wait then you dont need it. Save money and buy yourself something else. A bike for instance. Or a ring for your girlfriend,

I agree, totally, however I can understand why someone might raise such a question. Enthusiasts are likely going to ask that kind of question when, say, considering a motherboard like the Asus Striker Extreme, which to many is expensive. Some may want to know how long such a purchase is expected to exist before being considered obsolete.

 

[misiu_mp]

Yeh but Op seems not to be an enthusiast. There is no need for an expensive motherboard.

Really, there will always be a new thing next year or in couple of months. Sometimes it can pay to wait but not more than few weeks (like the Core 2 Duo E4300). And if you need the hardware NOW than its the NOW you have to care about.

 

[kukito]

Since Intel is expected to switch to new sockets for its next generation products and since that will probably happen in 2008, it seems like you have answered your own question. However if you're willing to change your mind then follow misiu_mp's good advice.

 

[funnyvlad]

So I have like two alternatives:

1) Buy a decent system now and stick with it as long as I can afford.
2) Wait and stick with my obsolete s478 system until it totally crashes.

Hmm I think I wait a couple of months so I can buy the c2d 6600. I know that c2d6300 and 6400 is better if you are a overclocker but I am not.

thanks anyway everyone

 

[techgeek]

Wow your worried about a socket change in a year and a half? That's a long time. Especially considering that Socket T aka LGA775 has been with us since around 2003/4ish. Granted all the chipsets with that socket couldn't support all the Socket T CPU's that were released later, I think that's still a pretty good show. Unless you plan to go to the new architecture shortly after it comes out, you'll have plenty of time with your new investment. Gone are the days of upgrading on a single platform for 5+ years (at least since Socket 7).

One can only hope that Intel pushes out an On-Die memory controller and a data bus to replace the FSB with their next new series. It doesn't have to be HyperTransport (although some continuity between manufacturers would be nice), just something with a bit more headroom in the bandwidth department. I love C2D (see the sig), but the more cores they add, the more bandwidth they're going to need. If Intel doesn't just hop on the HyperTransport wagon, they may just surprise us and innovate and give us something great, sans C2D. Competition has woken the giant, it would be nice to see their huge engineering department brainstorm the next greatest data bus.

Come on Intel you've captured the minds of the enthusiast with C2D, ditch the FSB and give us an On-Die memory controller and a data bus with bandwidth for the future.

 

[halcyon]

I'm one of those enthusiasts that just ordered an Extreme Striker, as it seems like decent board. If it last me through 2 years of CPU upgrades, I'll be quite happy. If not, I'll have learned a lesson about buying extreme gear.

 

[Crashman]

Intel's changing sockets? That would be a haphazard move...Socket 478 still works and is able to support the latest processors, Intel abandoned it because it didn't have "enough" power pins for its Pentium D's at high speeds. Evidence of this statement can be found in its mobile socket line.

 

[BMFM]

LGA775 will stick around for a good time after the introduction of sockets H (LGA715) and B (LGA1366).

But don't keep your hopes high for anything new being developed for LGA775 after that (from Intel, at least). Also, I don't believe Intel will be producing anything for LGA775 after year-end 2008, but just shipping what they will still have in stock by then.

But you should keep in mind that your new machine might outlast that by a couple of years. (Depending on what you build and for what you need it for, of course)

 

[grifter33]

whether its a new socket, Faster Ram or a new interface feature like PCIe, or SLI, theres always going to be something new coming out in a few months.

If you're still on socket 478 then you're obviously not the type to upgrade frequently, so I wouldn't worry about a socket change. By the time you are ready for another major upgrade, you will still end up needing a new mobo + ram along with the processor anyway. If you need/want a pc now get it. Waiting won't give you any advantage for future upgrades.

If you were the type to upgrade frequently, like once a year, you might want to keep a closer eye on upcoming changes, since waiting a few weeks might allow you to reuse more components, but if you only upgrade every 3-4 years, there isn't much use in waiting since odds are the majority of your system will be obsolete by then.

 

[BMFM]

Have you been hibernating for the last four months?

Nehalem, Intel's new architecture to replace Core 2 in 2008 will have an on-die memory controller.

Intel will also release CSI (Common Serial Interconnect or Common System Interface, mixed info from various sources here) as a counterpart to hyper transport.

A link: Two New Sockets For Nehalem in 2008

 

[funnyvlad]

I'm one of those enthusiasts that just ordered an Extreme Striker, as it seems like decent board. If it last me through 2 years of CPU upgrades, I'll be quite happy. If not, I'll have learned a lesson about buying extreme gear.

Right but if you compare to a videocard then Asus Striker Extreme is a better and cheaper upgrade cause you pay only 100$ more than a decent mobo and that maybe lasts for two years(as you said) but if you buy a gf 8800gtx that cost a couple of hundreds of dollars over a decent gpu and you still have to change it to a better one one year later(if you are a enthusiast).

Buy the way, when I am gooing to buy a new computer I surely wouldn´t spend the money on some cheap mobo cause i want to be able to eventually oc the cpu. I was wondering if these thre mobo is any good for that? Gigabyte´s is least expensive but is it stable for OC?

Asus P5W DH Deluxe
Asus P5B DLX/WIFI-AP
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4

 

[ottopw]

Early January Asus is releasing the Commando based on the P965 chipset which will be able to do all that the Striker can do Except of course its a crossfire not sli board. The chipset is obviously far more stable though. ANd is set to go for $260.

http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=307&model=1480&modelmenu=1

If you want a striker but don't want to spend the money then get the Asus P5N32-E. Its the same board minus the LED's and eSata and goes for about $300.

 

[techgeek]

I read some early roadmap stuff on Nehalem, but hadn't read anything specific on sockets nor was anything mentioned about a new bus but this was over a year ago and I hadn't read anything since. This is all good though, now all the AMD fanboys that run around poo pooing the external memory controller and the FSB can find something more valuable to do with their time (stamp collecting, watching paint dry, etc). Thanks for the info BMFM.

It's important to note that everything is shifting to serial buses, PCI-E (serial based), SATA is another example. Funny that Intel seemed to be championing that cause back in the early P4 days with RAMBUS's RD-RAM, but got slammed for it. Of course high latency and high cost were the biggest factors to kill it off, even after RD-RAM started to become competitive performance wise with DDR, the cost was still a kick in the nuts. Not only that but RAMBUS and their bullying licensing crap didn't encourage the RAM manufacturers to adopt RD-RAM. Maybe someday in the future we'll see another attempt at moving the RAM interface to a serial bus, if RAMBUS doesn't try to claim patents and sue everyone.

 

[funnyvlad]

Thanks but maybe a bit stiff cause I am not an enthusiast but I wonder, the soundcard that comes along the Commando card, is it near as good as my SB X-fi XtremeMusic? And frankly, I don´t care if it´s a SLI or Crossfire cause I am not a hardcore gamer even though I like to play games now and then but a single good card will do more than enough for my needs

 

[plankmeister]

It doesn't matter if they stop producing LGA775 chips... There will still be a wealth of available processors out there that will be better than what you can buy now. Look on eBay at how many PII/PIIIs there are. There'll still be current-gen C2Ds for sale on eBay in 10 years...
I would class myself as a semi-enthusiast, yet I'm going to upgrade to an LGA775 system in the next few days. When Intel stop producing LGA775 chips, I'll get the best bang/buck available at that time, which I'm sure will be a 3GHz quad-core with 8mb cache or something like it. And that'll keep me going for another couple of years, especially with a memory and VGA upgrade . Which means I'll be using the LGA775 socket for at least the next 4 years, which suits me fine.

 

[funnyvlad]

Seems reasonable. By the way I see that you are planning to buy the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 which implies that it is good for OC(you wrote that you wanted to OC 2,13Ghz to 3,2Ghz). I read somewhere that that particular card wasn´t able to change memory voltage on the dimm-sockets and that you were stuck with 1,8V. not so good when you want to OC but it could be due to an old BIOS. Do you know anything about it?

 

[plankmeister]

Not heard about that... And I've read a few threads of people having no problems overclocking the DS4... But still, thanks for the heads-up! I'll dig a little deeper

EDIT: On gigabytes site, the details for the DS4 include this:

"Overvoltage : Flexible voltage setting for CPU/ Memory/ PCI-E/Chipset"

So I guess they ironed out the bugs. I'm sure they wouldn't market it as being able to over-volt if it couldn't do it. Maybe it was an early BIOS issue, as you said.

 

[BMFM]

It’s all information that has been leaked and presented in the past 4 to 5 months.

Another thing I think is quite interesting is that Intel is working with IBM and already announced they’re developing an extension to the PCIe standard designed to be faster and to have lower latencies, called Geneseo.

ZDNet News: Intel opens up chip connections


About the move to serial buses, I’m particular interested in how creative is going to deal with it, as Intel is going to continuously remove support for legacy devices. I wonder how long will it takes for Intel to remove all PCI slots in favor of PCIe.

They have an excellent sound card, but are nagging too much about PCIe, instead of showing they are working hard at developing a product for the PCIe bus. If I may recall the X-Fi boards were originally intended to be a PCIe part.

 

[xmojo]

Given that Intel has just released more quad-core CPUs, the current version of the LGA775 socket still has life for probably the rest of this year. Maybe we'll see a change in socket type when the 8-core processors come out next year, but do you really need an 8-core processor? I think a dual-core or quad-core processor is sufficient for your needs for at least the next two years. If you're a gamer, bear in mind game developers have really only taken advantage of dual-core processors for their games in the past 6 months and have yet to develop any games that take advantage of quad-core CPUs.