Wednesday, December 5th 2012
Intel to Provide Socketed CPUs for "The Foreseeable Future"
Provided Intel's idea of the "foreseeable future" doesn't end at 2014, PC enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief as it came out with a statement saying it is committed to socketed CPU platforms. "Intel remains committed to the growing desktop enthusiast and channel markets, and will continue to offer socketed parts in the LGA package for the foreseeable future for our customers and the Enthusiast DIY market," said Intel spokesperson Daniel Snyder, adding "However, Intel cannot comment on specific long-term product roadmap plans at this time, but will disclose more details later per our normal communication process."
Reports of Intel abandoning socketed client CPUs in favor of BGA (ball grid array) packages -- in which the processor is permanently soldered onto motherboards à la graphics cards -- first surfaced in October with industry observer PC Watch, which maintains a spotless record on predicting long-term Intel roadmaps, claiming Intel will abandon socketed CPUs after 4th generation Core "Haswell." The news even prompted AMD to come out with a statement that it's never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna turn around and desert you.
Source:
Maximum PC
Reports of Intel abandoning socketed client CPUs in favor of BGA (ball grid array) packages -- in which the processor is permanently soldered onto motherboards à la graphics cards -- first surfaced in October with industry observer PC Watch, which maintains a spotless record on predicting long-term Intel roadmaps, claiming Intel will abandon socketed CPUs after 4th generation Core "Haswell." The news even prompted AMD to come out with a statement that it's never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna turn around and desert you.
23 Comments on Intel to Provide Socketed CPUs for "The Foreseeable Future"
Of course they'll still have LGA CPUs but they didn't deny that their mainstream CPUs weren't going to be BGA only which is what the original report was about:
It could almost enable them to force manufacturers to purchase the entire guts of the pc(cpu,mobo,ram,gfx) direct from Intel.
"You guys deal with getting power, visuals and wrapping it. We do the rest."
It's also possible that they could choose to keep Haswell around along with Broadwell: sell Broad soldered to Intel mobos, keep selling Haswell, Haswell 2, etc. in LGA. Intel is no foreign to running several architectures at the same time.
I see no problem with the low end stuff going bga....the hedt would be .... a loose loose loose situation
Still sucks for anyone wanting to build a home file server or HTPC... or anything that requires a lower-end CPU but a higher-end motherboard. Or for DIY'er who doesn't want to plop down a small fortune for the high-end stuff... but I guess that's where AMD comes in.
AMD is already better for that sort of stuff right now.
Good Bulldozer/Piledriver boards with lots of expansion and sata are cheaper than comparable Z77 choices, let alone X79. Also nice that AMD left ECC support in which Intel pretty much reserves for the Xeon line.
At least I can change my cpu to an even slower model?
Makes good forum banter but little else. If mainstream goes BGA good. Perhaps it could lead to reduced operating costs for Intel and MAYBE savings for the end user.
LGA won't be eliminated anytime soon, if they did that they'd loose quite a bit of $$$. Intel hates losing $$$
: D
For enthusiasts and HPC this will not happen. 1) It makes no economic sense to sacrifice and limit a $500 CPU to one board, 2) HPC demands ability to rapidly fix any "downs". Swapping is CPU is relatively quick compared with swapping a whole mainboard.
I think Intel wants to offer an all-in-one solution. Manufacturing the board, CPU, chipset, GPU (in a couple of years time, their GPU will be quite good enough for 95% of consumers. In fact, for HTPC it is already good enough). GPUs will not be necessary for most people unless they want extreme performance. ATi/nV watch out!
Intel has been headed in that route since they replaced lga1366.