Socket AM2- M2 motherboards to cost $5 to $10 more

THE AMD socket M2/AM2 based motherboards aren't likely to cost very much more than existing sockets. AMD advised its motherboard parners that the new motherboards will cost them only a little bit more. Socket vendors can make those sockets with small tooling changes to existing Socket 939 and should keep the cost to N almost equivalent level.

Socket AM2/M2 boards will use DDR 2 DIMM sockets only, so you can say goodbye to DDR 1 memory. DDR2 sockets have been around for more than two years now, thanks mainly to Intel of course and their cost is already equal to DDR1 sockets. No change here.

The maximum thermal dissipation will remain very close to existing socket 939 CPUs but AMD will introduce a new improved mounting for the new heatsinks. The improved mounting uses four holes instead of two. We don't know whether you'll be able to use the old Athlon 64 coolers for these new boards or not. Something tells me that you should be able to do it.

All these factors will drive the cost of M2 or AM2 boards to be five to ten dollars higher than socket 939 or 754 boards. After some time, this cost should drop but at the beginning it will be a little bit more expensive to make them. They are still scheduled for Q2 launch, so I suspect that you should see many of them at Computex in June and some previews at CeBIT next month. µ