Joe, Re: "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."
Sockets are only one part of the upgrade path. You can't seriously tell me that you expect Thoroughbred and Barton to seamlessly work with existing Athlon motherboards, do you? Very likely, AMD will increase the front side bus speed, change the voltage requirements, or offer newer memory options that people will want to take advantage of. These changes need to be supported by the chipset, not just by the socket. The socket is just an interface - a plug - that allows you to insert a CPU. It is quite probably that future CPUs will not be compatible with the current chipset, even though they fit in the same socket.
Of course, I'll tell you what you want to hear, and admit that some of Intel's socket changes were unnecessary at best. Socket-423 could have been entirely done away with, and socket-370 could have been flip-chip compatible to begin with. I think the reason why these intermediaries even existed was because Intel has a fear of being late to market. It creates a big risk, so it's worth foregoing a long range upgrade path in order to get a product to market faster, especially since fewer people are upgrading, anyway.
On the other hand, when Intel has their act together, it only makes sense to accommodate the largest possible market, which includes those that want a guaranteed upgrade path. Of course, guaranteeing an upgrade path isn't easy; like I've been saying, there is more to the upgrade path than just the socket. AMD and Intel will both face challenges in providing this ability, but when it comes between innovation and legacy support, I believe Intel will (rightfully) go with the innovative approach. Socket-478 has many advantages over Intel's previous sockets, and I would certainly take it over shoe-horning future CPUs into the bulky and inelegant socket-423 design.
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