wbmw,
The original subject was upgrading CPU. This means you buy a computer, and at some time in the future, you upgrade the CPU. In order to do this, the motherboard you have needs to be "forward" compatible, meaning a future processor can be used in the present motherboard.
(You see the obvious difference between "forward" compatible and backward compatible. Paul Engel and Winsock obviously can't, since they beat their chest about the fact that they can buy today the latest Tualatin motherboard with Tualatin processor. Their motherboard is so advanced, that at any time, they can take out their latest Tualatin processor, and downgrade it to a microprocessor made 1, 2 or even 3 years ago.)
This is my rating of platform regarding upgradability, as they were introduced:
Intel Slot 1: Excellent RIP
Intel Socket 370, 1st: Bad RIP
AMD Slot A: Bad RIP
Intel Socket 370, 2nd: Bad RIP
AMD Socket A: Very Good Current (may turn out excellent)
Intel Socket 423: Horrible Current (shortest lived platform, instant obsolescence)
Intel Socket 370, 3rd: Bad Current (dead end platform)
Intel Socket 478: ??? Current (Too new to judge, may turn out good to excellent)
You can see that Intel went from Excellent to Horrible, but has a potential for improvement with the Socket 478 based platform. AMD went from Bad to Very Good, and given the fact that there will be another 1 to 1.5 generations of the chips based on the current platform (Toroughbred, Barton), the potential for upgradability is Excellent.
Joe
PS: I am not sure why you seem so confused about the basic fact of upgradability. It is something completely different about replacing the system to have the highest performing system all the time, for which you have to constantly replace many components, but it is completely different subject.
With upgrade, you start with some $100, and you throw it at the performance bottleneck. It is most likely the CPU, or not enough memory, so you buy that, open the case, and in about 5 minutes, you have the same system performing faster. |
