Intel is planning a new socket

Maybe we can see a new intel 'light peak' connected optical processor which supports hardware level concurrency for dynamic data scaling and reprogrammable process constructor handling.

Suppose this means functions truly are empty vassal states for the constructor operands and arguments.

All hail the light, for i am the tunnel.

The fat lady isnt singing yet, she hasnt even started warming up. yes AMD has struggled some in the past, but a lot of that was due to intel being afraid of competition and doing things like choking off AMD's revenue stream and fiddling with compilers and so on. the playing field has been anything but level ever since the day AMD release the Athlon in 1999.

The fight isnt over yet, i have a gut feeling that xome next year the landscape is going to change yet again when bulldozer and bobcat get come to market.

Intels vast performance lead is only in the desktop / consumer market, in the server market the game is a little different. AMD is picking up steam, gaining market share and new OEM's too. this game is far from over, and intel is just helping things along with dumbass maneuvers like this.

In their mind they can force whole platform changes on the world anytime they want, but thats going to haunt them when things start to heat up next year.

And besides this is hardly news, running a headline about intel planning on changing sockets is like running a headline saying saying bill gates is planning to change his underwear. everybody expects it, nobody wants to hear about it, and thinking about it makes people skin crawl...

I don't care if they (Intel, MS, Apple) and others stay or go.
What i do want is that competition will make them to behave fairly.
There is nothing technical to stop MS to port DX10 and 11 to XP (OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 can do the same as DX11 and more on any platform ), they don't want to do it.
Or making new sockets every couple of years. if they want, they can increase data transfer rates over existing pin count. But then, they can't sell you chipset with new CPU. What real gains you have ? nothing !!! I understand it when you do something like integrating memory controllers and video into the chip, but making 2 sockets for the same generation and year later announce new one seems to me like pure lucre.
I do like to upgrade slowly. I still have 775 with C2Q and 8GB of DDR2 1066.
And truly can't justify any upgrade, but storage and graphics subsystem for the next few years. The CPU are 2 years old and MB even older. both are mid+ (or high-)range.

I once bought a motherboard supporting PC's with 1333 mHz FSB, and initially I went with a 800-mHz FSB CPU because that was what was available at the time. Intel NEVER released a CPU with a 133 mHz FSB that was compatable with my mobo, even though Intel said my MOBO could handle it! So much for upgrade path.

b - everyone system builder knows that you first buy a decent mid-range CPU, then buy an 'almost the fastest' CPU later. The 'best, fastest' cpu for a given slot will always be foolishly expensive. Look up Ebay prices for SECC SLOT-2 CPUs, the 'fastest' CPUs are still more expensive than a 'modern' low-end CPU. Even a high-end 478 P4 runs about $40.

"soon" upgrade days will be over? GPU slots have been the most stable part of the system. AGP then PCI-8 then PCI-16, that's two slot changes in about a million years. In that period of time RAM has gone from SDRAM to DDR to DDR2 to DDR3, and CPU sockets have been insane. Even HDD standards have gone from IDE100 to IDE133 to SATA to SATA2.

New sockets come along every couple of years, every builder of hardware knows the basic rules:

1. Get the new socket and mid-range CPU when it is *new*.

2. Two years later: upgrade to the latest and greatest CPU for that socket, cheaply.

This will provide you with a four-year useful and cost effective life-span. Any more than that are just wild fantasies.

x86 has served us just fine and AMD delivers plenty of performance pr. buck if you can live without the bragging rights of 20% more speed at 200% cost.

I do think it's interesting that Intel is sacrificing memory density for speed. That'll win them some benchmarks for sure but is less interesting for someone like me who run memory intensive programs where basically more is more. RAM remains the single biggest expense in my computers, I often spend twice the cash on RAM as I do on CPU.

Give it a rest. x86 is not going away. It would have a long time ago had it been viable.

Besides, even with a different ISA, Intel would still be king of the roost. Other chip vendors simply do not have a viable desktop line of processors, nor the capacity to produce them. Even IBM and Motorola couldn't produce something to keep Apple in their line of processors, and Apple has always wanted hardware exclusivity.

Even if there was an alternative ISA desktop processor line, it's not like Microsoft, Apple or other OS vendors will just go away. Virtually all modern OSes can be compiled to run on any architecture, and even most apps can be ported or emulated. Intel would also get in on the action with their own line of chips, which would probably still be superior to their counterparts.

CISC, RISC, whatever. Nobody cares about that anymore. The only issue with x86 these days is licensing. However, I doubt other companies would be producing x86 processors even if the licenses were free. It's hard enough for AMD to produce something alone.

I hope that some one else will enter the desktop processor market with other than x86 ISA. This will bring REAL competition since AMD and VIA are not. Intel will always rule x86 because they own it.
I guess it wont take long for ARM to enter low-mid end desktop market if they success with smartbooks. They will also bring Linux to the masses -- easy switch to whatever ISA. I really want PowerPC back.
Someone has to stop Intel and MS. i mean there nothing wrong in making money, but IMHO those companies (and many others) abuse their monopolistic power.

soon the days of upgrading your existing hardware will be gone. intel makes more profit if you have to bin more of your existing stuff and buy new. intel control the hardware architecture so if they crack the whip, consumers have to pay.

Intel's upcoming processor is being prepared to kill AMD's Bulldozer even before launch like what happened with Family 10h processor. Intel's Justin Rattner will do like what he had done in IDF 2006, but he will put AMD Opteron in Water Closet and flush it. This is an example how he respects to AMD's crappy products