AMD also said that they would maintain socket A/462 compatibility for the remaining life of the Athlon CPU. But people keep questioning whether their existing motherboards will continue to support the next generation Athlon. If I recall correctly, people asked the same thing when the AXP came out.
The question has been kicked around even before then. When AMD released the AthlonC, there were plenty of people with SocketA motherboards who couldn't use the new 133MHz FSB chips. That question has been around almost as long as the SocketA standard. The answer has always gone: Sure, the socket won't change. However, the specifications for running the CPU in the socket will.
What was the answer?
BIOS upgrades to recognize the new CPU, but so long as the board was manufactured to AMD specs, they generally seem to have worked fine. I expect the same for the Thoroughbred and later Barton.
I think the key phrase there is "<font color=green>so long as the board was manufactured to AMD specs</font color=green>". AMD has often in the past been <i>very</i> unclear on just what those specs are until there have already been chipsets and motherboards developed and sold which do not meet those specs. Case in point: AMD's thermal 'protection'. Sure, the chip now tells you when it is overheating. But did AMD actually write up any specs on how to develop a motherboard that properly protected the CPU using this until <i>after</i> numerous chip burnings? Case in point: The change from a 100MHz FSB to a 133MHz FSB. Case in point: The change in the CPU core voltage.
And once again, we are going to see AMD change the CPU core voltage a second time. While this in and of itself is good, I can <i>guarantee</i> that there will be SocketA motherboards which met AMD's 'specifications' when the motherboards were developed that will not be capable of running a Thoroughbred or Barton. How can I guarantee this? Because there are people out there using such SocketA motherboards right now that are unable to support even an Athlon XP because of AMD's lack of consideration for the future when they write their 'specifications'.
And I can guarantee that there will also be an extremely vocal minority of people too stupid to know their own system specs which will whine and moan about how their new Socket A processor (Thoroughbred) won't run in their SocketA motherboard.
AMD has proven that they are incapable of writing 'specifications' which include consideration for any real future changes. Instead they just update those 'specifications' whenever they release something new, and those who used products based on their previous 'specifications' are SOL.
While AMD might be very skilled at designing low-cost high-performance CPUs, they are very unskilled at writing specifications with as much consideration towards the future as to the present.
<pre>If you let others think for you, you're the
only one to blame when things go wrong.</pre><p>
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