max,
If AMD (or Via) could do a cheaper version of the 760MP, it could have lots of success.
I am not sure it is the chipset itself that makes the motherboard so expensive, but it is what it entails. At minimum you have the northbridge, 2 sets of traces to the 2 CPUs, and 2 sets of traces to 2 pairs of DIMMs (I seem to recall from some presentations that they are separate. Then you have the the faster connection to southbridge, which may or may not be proprietory, and probably not readily exchangeable for other southbridges, because of the higher bandwidth requirement. The Tyan board also has onboard dual LAN, SCSI and video.
To make a cheap motherboard for a workstation, rather than server, you would have to cut things, starting with SCSI, Video, probably LAN. Something like this could be a mid range motherboard for say $300.
Next, you could limit RAM to 2 DIMMs. Also, if it is possible to reduce the board from 64 bit PCI to 32 bit, you could get down to a cheap gamer board.
But with the PCI, there will finally start to be a demand for at least 64 bit, if not 66 MHz version, because Gigabit ethernet will probably become as common over the next 2 - 3 years as Fast Ethernet is today. And the Gigabit Ethernet is about at the limit of what plain PCI can deliver. I think the flood of the cheap Gigabit Ethernet network cards is about to happen. 3Com is starting to sell what they call a server version for less than $200, this place has it for $166: pcnation.com The card supports anything from 32 bit 33 MHz PCI all the way to PCI-X.
Joe |
