I have been looking at new cpu's and thought that I was limited to 939 chips because my mobo is socket 939. Then I remembered that I have a future cpu port on my ASRock dual mobo. I'm not exactly sure what that means but I think it means I can use AM2 processors. If I am wrong please correct me, and if I am right does anyone know what I need to plug into my "future cpu port" in order to be able to use an AM2 chip?
Wouldent a card make the CPU slow because its going through PCI Slots, or would it be using PCI 1X or the actual CPU Socket?
The A64 design isn't drastically affected by slower HTT speeds. You only start to notice this barely (and I mean in benchmarks) below 400MHz HTT speeds. A PCIe x16 slot provides 8GB/s bandwidth.
Depends on which board it is that ASrock designs that card for...they might have to. I mean, PCI could work, but at 133MB/s for the entire bus...the CPU upgrade could end up as more of a downgrade for some people. ASrock isn't targeting the enthusiast crowd. They're targeting the basic replacement crowd that just want to be able to upgrade as cheaply as possible. Not everybody cares if they have an AGP or PCIe x16 slot. Many of us here do, but, then again, we game, and graphics potential is a big deal to us. Actually, if it's one of the board's I'm thinking of, they do have one that has a separate AGP or PCIe-like slot that's set aside for their proprietary CPU upgrade boards.
So let me get this straight. If the slot is a pcieX16 then I shouldn't see a slow down, but if it's anything else I shouldn't bother with an AM2 Proc?
An AGP-style offering might be an option, but that depends on the board. I don't *think* ASrock offers a straight PCI CPU upgrade board---at least from what I've seen. It would depend on what you want and the particular host motherboard model.
That's one of the few ULi-based motherboards with native AGP and PCIe support. The CPU upgrade slot (the yellow AGP-ish one) is in a good position so you don't have to worry about it interfering with the PCIe slot.
