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Date:	Mon, 13 Aug 2001 09:19:36 PDT
From:	"mrakijas" <mrakijas@oco.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	<scoug-help@scoug.com >
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Slot vs. Socket

Content Type: text/plain

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Some of it is historical and some of it is marketing but as far as
I can tell, none of it is technical. The bottom line is that the
socketed architecture is lower in cost and if you don't have time,
you can forgo the following explanation why the cost is lower.

Sure, it costs a little more to package the CPU in that socket
housing but that's not where the real cost problem occurred. For
the longest time Intel was peeved that AMD was making Intel socket
compatible chips. This leveraged the engineering developed for
Intel-supporting chipsets (even if they weren't Intel developed)
and AMD usually undercut Intel on price. I believe the 486 was
the last chip for which AMD had Intel-licensed microcode so that
when the Pentium came out, Intel thought they had AMD closed off.
AMD was still able to reverse engineer the socket and signals so
Intel needed another gambit. They proceeded to develop the
slotted chip, socket and patented the results. I'm not sure but
the bus architecture may have been patented as well. Thus, even
if AMD was able to reverse engineer the socket and signals, Intel
would still would be able to collect royalties from the
motherboard/chipset makers and control AMD's market share that
way. They could compensate for chip price differential with the
royalties they charged for use of the socketed architecture.

Two problems resulted: 1) Intel was going to throttle technical
development through this strategy that made noone but Intel happy
and 2) there were going to be an obvious cost rise if for no other
reason, the royalties that were going to go to Intel. AMD was
confronted with continuously chasing Intel and outright paying
Intel royalties even when Intel had no products in the sale.
AMD's risk of circumventing Intel was that they might not quite be
big enough to garner enough support from chipset developers and
motherboard makers. In the past, they could ignore AMD and just
support Intel (except for the occasional soft setting that were
easily built in as AMD became more popular) knowing that it was
AMD's problem to become compatible with the market standard (the
Intel=Windows and AMD=OS/2 analogy comes to mind). In short,
you've seen the result. AMD struck out on it's own and by
catering to the chipset makers (with codevelopment from their
engineering department and leveraging the bus architecture from
the DEC Alpha) and the motherboard makers with royalty free
development, they wooed enough of the market to make their systems
self sufficient. They are no longer pin/bus compatible with Intel
chips (note slot A versus slot 1) but they were quicker to move
back to the cheaper-to-manufacture sockets. At one time, Intel
swore that the slot architecture was here to stay and there was no
going back but, surprise, they went back on that by going back to
socketed chips for cost reasons. For a long time, they would
artificially keep the slotted chips priced equivalently but AMD's
success has caused that to erode now with socketed chips
approximately 5% lower in price from the equivalent slotted ones.
I don't know what Intel charges for royalties on their patents now
but if they charge anything, they're crazy - the horse is out of
the barn.

Anyway, this is the Cliff notes version of this history and there
may be some slight errors here and there but that's how I've seen
the market develop. The bottom line is that there are really few
technical reasons for one over the other - socketed chips are just
cheaper.

-Rocky

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "J. R. Fox"
Reply-To: scoug-help@scoug.com
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 18:18:42 PDT

>=====================================================
>If you are responding to someone asking for help who
>may not be a member of this list, be sure to use the
>REPLY TO ALL feature of your email program.
>=====================================================
>
>In reply to:
>
>> >2. What are the considerations (pros/cons) for slot vs. socket

cpu's?
>>
>
>Steven Levine wrote:
>
>> Everything I read tends to prefer socket. Are there still slot

MB's? I
>> haven't been shopping lately.
>> --=====================================================
>
>Why ? (A brief answer is fine.)
>
>
>Jordan
>
>
>
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>
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>
>

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