Asus warns of Pentium 4 dumping

The big surprise to the INQUIRER is that quite a few Taiwanese mobo makers warned this would happen when we revealed the existence of the 478 pin socket Pentium 4 in June last year, but still pressed ahead and made mobos.

Sources at Asus said the recent and coming price cuts for the Pentium 4 mean the market is "rapidly adopting" the platform.

Asus says this does not necessarily mean the Pentium 4 is the best platform, but that a lot of people will be buying it.

Asus said there does seem to be a "recent surge" in P4 mobo sales, with sales of the P4 850 increasing by between 33 to 50 per cent over the last few months.

However, it said this is still less volume compared to Socket 370 and Socket A, and "well off" Intel's projections, although it reveals that demand is picking up.

SDRAM mobos and DDR-based Pentium 4 mobos will increase demand, said Asus, and some companies are already experiencing shortages - although the firm insists it is fine.

But Asus is warning that consumers may well become confused because of the twin options - 423 and 478 socket processors.

The socket 423 mobos are based on the i850 chipset and only support Rambus RIMMs. Asus suggests there is a surplus of such boards in the market, including some from Intel, and some companies will be tempted to dump.

"For most users the Socket 478 platform is more viable andcost-efficient for the future," the note continued. "RDRAM costs are higher than PC133 and DDR by up to 66%, although RDRAM does offer some performance benefit, it's not the best solution for all mainstream users, Socket 423 strictly supports RDRAM only, Socket 423 processors will only reach speeds up to 2.0GHz and will eventually be phased out." Asus reckons that Socket 478 provides the best upgrade path for P4 as it will be supported for both Williamette and Northwood (0.13 micron) processors, while only Socket 478 P4s will have speeds over 2GHz.

As sources close to the INQUIRER tell us that next year Intel will get to 3GHz and later on 4GHz, we reckon Asus is right.

First off, Socket 478 supports PC133, DDR, and RDRAM, as Intel has pointed out in presentations to its customers recently.

So just how can you tell whether the P4 you're buying is Socket 423 or Socket 478?

The answer is to carefully question the vendor - and if you like, print out this article and take it along and show them - as it's possible the salesman or saleswoman doesn't know. µ