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AMD / Intel Hybrid Motherboard

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the grand-unification-theory dept.

batgirl writes "ECS has taken advantage of their recent merger with PC Chips and released an interesting take on motherboards. Using the highly portable SiS chipsets, they were able to create a motherboard that supports all kinds of processors across all platforms. The PF88 starts as an Intel socket 775 motherboard, but different expansion cards can be purchased to add support for everything from a Socket 939 Athlon64 to a Socket 479 Pentium-M. The price is right, and performance is as good as can be expected. But how many people would make use of this?"

11 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Not me by fuzzy12345 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I generally find that by the time upgrading the CPU is cost effective, a new motherboard makes sense as part of the package. YMMV

    --

    Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
    1. Re:Not me by gbulmash · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I generally find that by the time upgrading the CPU is cost effective, a new motherboard makes sense as part of the package. YMMV

      So much is built onto the mainboard now... USB, firewire, support for various forms of DDR, sound, LAN... These don't change as often as CPUs, but they change.

      Of course, this is meant to be a budget board, or at least they're using budget chipsets. The best I can see is that it provides whitebox manufacturers more flexibility. Use whatever CPU is on hand.

      - Greg

      --
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  2. Same as... by axonal · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Same people who put new engines in their VW Bugs. If the rest of the car is still good, then just upgrade the engine to keep up with the times.

    1. Re:Same as... by toddbu · · Score: 4, Funny

      AFAIK, only one of them has had to replace the factory-original rubber band.

      --
      If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
  3. Mark? by BrynM · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Despite eveyone talking smack, I can see this being a valuable benchmark board. How well do these CPU/Chipset combos work? How well does this ATI card do with an AMD CPU? Okay now how about an Intel CPU? It's not a new idea to expand the CPU, but doing it across vendors like this is interesting.

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  4. The article stated it well by Gactaculon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article summarized this idea well by calling it "a solution without a problem". The whole thing is just so amazingly ill-considered that it's very hard to take it seriously. The only need I could see for something like this is if someone with a P4 needed PCI-E now, and _also_ knew that they wanted to go AMD later. Even then, would they put up with buying a $50 expansion board and running their expensive new processor on that hacked solution?? If PCChips/ECS want to be ambitious, why not endeavor to bring affordable SMP to the masses? Even if the server-classed chips required are expensive, many people must be put off by $300, server-oriented mainboards. This way, they could grab some serious attention in the high-end market and gain credibility. What they're doing now is only going to leave people scratching their heads...

  5. Its...Its...Its....like a ...^^rainbow^^^ by eclectro · · Score: 4, Funny


    Forget that it can handle all those processors. Look at all the pretty colors.

    Maybe it was built by unicorns....

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  6. Re:Not me; Oh but it is by wondafucka · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I generally find that by the time upgrading the CPU is cost effective, a new motherboard makes sense as part of the package. YMMV
    If this company has done it's job right, this should reduce the overall cost of the board. If vendors have to keep fewer types of boards around then they are buying fewer types, giving them a price break. By having one mainboard that is common to all daughterboards, the total cost of delivering the motherboard is cheaper (one hopes).
    My two cents.

    --
    postmodernsideshow.com
  7. PC Chips will never have my trust by Mancat · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm not buying anything from PC Chips, ever. Anyone else remember when they were making 486 boards with fake L2 cache? Yes, FAKE CACHE. The cache chips were empty, and the board had a modified BIOS that reported whatever cache size the motherboard was jumpered for.

    Screw this company, even if it has somehow evolved.

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  8. Re:Not me; Oh but it is by Limecron · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ditto on this for me as well. One PCChips (later coined PCShits) that I had for a Duron 600 was a nightmare. Two friends also got the same board and their experiences were none the better. After two years of BIOS updates, I finally had something that seemed stable, but I was wary of touching it. It was a releif once it stablized since I built the system for my parents and I got calls every few days tell me what the blue screen was saying this time.

    I do have a more recent PCChips board, and it is not as bad. A merger with ECS doesn't bolster my confidence in them, though my experience with ECS is limited.

    For now I stick to the mid-range Asus, Abit and BioStars and have had good luck.

  9. Better watch for cut corners and check the cache! by cdn-programmer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As I recall it was PC chips who produced the fake cache on the 486 motherboards. Look here:
    http://www.redhill.net.au/b/b-bad.html "PC Chips fake cache 486"

    I do have an ecs board but it was before the merger. It was stable for years.

    nevertheless - there are reputable manufacturers out their so why would I care about ECS/PC CHIPS?