Flama22 wrote:
Another thing to consider is how much of the market there is for people who want to upgrade just their CPU. We're enthusiasts here, and I'm sure for every one of us there are 10 people/business that buy a computer, use it until it stops working or is too slow, and then repeats this process. To them it doesn't matter what socket it's using.
exactly.
Running multiple sockets for the same market segment at the same time is a bad idea. it was a bad idea when AMD did it and it's a bad idea now as far as enthusiasts are concerned.
looing at things right now (pre-sandy bridge) there are some LGA1366 boards i would love to have, but i have no need for an i7 CPU. i'd do just fine with an i5 cpu which is only available on LGA1156 which has a less impressive lineup of high end boards. now on the AMD side i could get a board like the Crosshair IV Extreme and put a $30 sempron CPU in there if i wanted. The notion may seem a little silly for that much of an extreme, but just the fact that it's possible gives me more room, as a customer, to cut a less important corner to make sure i get all the features i want without having to buy power i don't need.