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The Question on everyone's mind....

Z

Zeke

Gawd
Joined
Apr 19, 2003
Messages
837
Will the next-gen boards with PCI express have "transition" editions that are socket 478? I would like to keep my 3 GHz processor and just buy a new mobo and video card...... I emailed [H]ard people about it, and they said they'd look into it, what does everyone else think?
 
I'm not too concerned myself. I'll just sell some other parts.

To be more exact, I think PCI Express will truely mark the PC evolution. I'm guessing there will be mainly BTX boards, no AGP slots, complete removal of PATA, etc. So when I upgrade to PCI Express I'm looking at a total system upgrade. Video, Sound, CPU, hell, mabye even RAM will be DDR2/QDR only.

Note: Not upgrading my HDDs, I'll get adapters.
 
Look at the bright side, AGP will still be around for a while and the newest cards will use still AGP, until it become a bottleneck.
 
Same here I don't plan to upgrade my system until BTX becomes available so that I can change my case/PSU at the same time.
 
Most things don't even tap into the full b/w available to AGP 8X, much less all the b/w from PCI Express
 
If PATA will be replaced... will optical drives go the way of SATA?

Or, can we be looking at a different dominant interface for those, such as internal firewire 800?
 
DDR2 will most likely not even show up for motherboards until at least 2005. The technology is there, but it will cost at least twice as much as regular DDR until 2005 (eveyones estimate) Its not like DDR which only had a small price premium over SDRAM at launch, very quickly got to parity, and now is cheaper than SDRAM.

SATA is definitely ready to replace PATA this year. I don't think BTX will catch on (if ever) until PCIexpress is firmly established.

We can keep the ATX form factor and have PCI express by removing the AGP and first PCI slot. It could be put "rightside" up too. I can see being able to sandwich one big fan above the GPU, resting on the Northbridge, and below the CPU for cooling.

That IMO, would be even better cooling than the proposed BTX.
 
We hear things every year, the floppy is dead, ps2 ports, etc.

I am betting PCI express will have the regular old pci slots on the board too. Kinda like ISA is sometimes still found on boards.

I see PATA, floppy, ps2, still hanging around this time next year.
 
Well, I just hope this is the last year for ISA. Please, please lets kill off ISA and reclaim the ISA bridge diespace on the chipsets and slotspace and use it for something useful. With the death of ISA, so too would most IRQ conflicts disappear.

PS/2 ports should live, just because I seriously have doubts about stability and data "smoothness" of USB ports to this day. Right now I think PS/2, parallel and serial ports are tied to ISA, but they could be tied to the PCI just as easily. The parallel port can die, its pretty crappy tech really... Originally unidirectional data and a big connector (too big) 9-pin serial I'm neutral on.

I want to see the the floppy die, but it probably not going to happen within the next few years, so there is no sense in pushing it.

What we desperately need is a SATA optical drive that is quiet. The perfect optical drive IMO would be an ultraquiet 2xDVD when reading (yes 2x) and whatever speed DVD+-RW CDRW with SATA interface when writing (a seperate programmable speed when DVD reading would be even better.) A godsend for SFF users, if you can control the speed, you can control the power consumption, heat and noise.

All this talk has got me thinking I should put a thumbs up/thumbs down page on technology and have people vote on it.
 
PS2 ports should live. Parallel can die, serial ports may stick around just b/c of the sheer # of devices that use them. Like battery back ups, custom programmed things, etc.

the 1st few generations of new boards will definitely have normal PCI slots probably half & half

just like the 1st generation of PCI mobo's had 1/2 ISA & 1/2 PCI slots(3 & 3)..... then they went to 4 PCI & 2 ISA, then 5 PCI and 1 ISA, then 6 PCI and no ISA.
(sometimes sharing a slot)
 
Anyways, I doubt that there will be much of a transitional product for your Socket 478 processor. It would be somewhat of a waste of developmental resources. I could see a low end transitional product akin to the i848P chipset of today--a low end chipset with a select few feature upgrades. The Grantsdale and Alderwood families of chipsets offer Socket 775 support, without specific mention of Socket 478 support, but I wouldn't rule out a Socket 478 alternative shortly after the initial chipset family launch during the spring/summer. Then again, if PCI Express is a southbridge-only phenomenon, and the ICH6W southbridge is drop-in compatible with the ICH5(R), board designers could opt for the new southbridge with minimal to no additional work. Fat chance, though.
 
Originally posted by xonik
Anyways, I doubt that there will be much of a transitional product for your Socket 478 processor. It would be somewhat of a waste of developmental resources. I could see a low end transitional product akin to the i848P chipset of today--a low end chipset with a select few feature upgrades. The Grantsdale and Alderwood families of chipsets offer Socket 775 support, without specific mention of Socket 478 support, but I wouldn't rule out a Socket 478 alternative shortly after the initial chipset family launch during the spring/summer. Then again, if PCI Express is a southbridge-only phenomenon, and the ICH6W southbridge is drop-in compatible with the ICH5(R), board designers could opt for the new southbridge with minimal to no additional work. Fat chance, though.
Click to expand...

Abit would probably do it. They have always offered innovative backwards designs.

Like their 815 chipset mobo that supported Slot1 (SECC) processors.

And they produced 423 pin mobos for a while after a lot of others had switched to exclusively 478 pin mobos.

Dont count it out.

One of my favorite (neatest) mobos of all time was the Tyan Trinity 400 based on a via chipset that supported BOTH socket370 & slot1 on one mobo!! with 100/133FSB support, 4xAGP, etc... I think 5 PCI slots & 2 ISA.

S1854_Large.jpg


P.S. NO ITS NOT A DUAL CPU MOBO!! only one CPU at a time!!!
 
Well that's a nice thought, but these types of motherboards still rely on the cooperation of the northbridge and compatible southbridges. If ICH6(W) isn't compatible with ICH5(R), and Grantsdale/Alderwood isn't compatible with Socket 478 processors, then how could the motherboard manufacturer accomodate these situations? I'm not saying that it couldn't happen or won't happen, but motherboard manufacturers don't just make these products without Intel's cooperation on the more fundamental levels.
 
We just dont know yet. This is not a total overhaul like P3 to P4 so my guess is that is probably possible.

Socket T and 478 are both prescott processors (basically very similar) just like slot1 and socket370 were both P3 processors.

in the past southbridges are USUALLY pin compatible drop ins. So its possible to have forward and backward compatibility in the interum. Like using the old IC5 for legacy support on a new board. Or IC6 on an old board for new standards support.

Dont count it out until we some more information. Then again dont count it in either! :)
 
Not really. ICH4 was 421 pins, and ICH5 is 460 pins, so you couldn't just drop in an ICH5 in any motherboard, even a recent one with an Intel northbridge. Only the i848P, i865 series, and i875 series can take the ICH5. I suspect the same will occur when ICH6 comes out.
 
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