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AMD Bulldozer Will Bring Socket Shift To PCs
An anonymous reader writes "One of the most dreaded hurdles on the PC upgrade path is the CPU socket. If socket design changes then you'll almost certainly need a new motherboard when you do upgrade. This is an area where AMD has historically been much better than Intel. Intel tends to change sockets with each generation of CPU — currently there are three types out there, LGA 1155 for Sandy Bridge, LGA 1156 for first generation core and LGA 1366 for the performance Core i7 processors. AMD on the other hand has always tried to keep sockets across generations. When it releases its new Bulldozer core desktop processors later this year AMD is having to make a socket shift from the current AM3 socket to a new one called AM3+. This article discusses the change, issues like backwards compatibility and what the industry is doing to prepare for the socket shift."
The worst shift that I remember was AGP to PCIe - you have to buy new video card if you want a new motherboard (or better, buy a new CPU, replace MB, RAM and VGA just to be compatible) and gaming cards are not cheap. At least with ISA/PCI/AGP you could still use the old card while you save the money for a new one. While I have a few AGP video cards laying around, if my PCIe VGA failed, until I repair it or buy a new one, I'd have to use a PCI VGA made in 1995.