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From: Tony Kimball <Anthony.Kimball@East.Sun.COM>
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To: michaelv@MindBender.serv.net
Cc: toj@gorilla.net, freebsd-hardware@freefall.freebsd.org
Subject: Re: supermicro p6sns/p6sas 
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Quoth Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com on Sat, 27 September:
: Socket 8 indeed appears to have been a limited detour.  Slot 1 may in
: time be superceeded by something better.  

IIRC, Intel plans to phase out slot 1 during the coming year.

: Socket 7 has a very limited future.  It simply doesn't have any way of
: coping with some of the new technology that will be necessary to make
: any sort of performance boosts possible beyond 300MHz.

The supporting argument is insufficient for the conclusion.  AMD and
Cyrix are actively engaged in providing alternate paths to cache.  One
proposed solution is to make a low-profile Socket 7 module with an
on-board cache controller, making the Socket 7 interface effectively
a point-to-point bus -- analogous to Slot 1.

: AMD and Cyrix may indeed be able to perpetuate several years more of
: Socket 7 chipsets, in the secondary market.  But it will be a typical
: AMD/Cyrix market, where performance is secondary, and low-cost is
: king.

K6 and P-II numbers are within a few months of each other, so I can't
agree with the implication that it will therefore not be possible to
maintain a Socket 7 system with competetive performance.

I do believe that it is quite clear that Socket 7 has superior life
expectancy to both Socket 8 (already hard to find many P6 parts) and
Slot 1 (Intel-planned short lifespan, to be replaced by Slot 2 in 98).

When Slot 2 systems are available, the situation may change, but
Intel will have very little reason to repent of its planned
motherboard obsolence policy unless the competitors produce a
non-proprietary competetive alternative.