Introduction
End of life a little premature?
I commented in my last motherboard review that the Socket A Athlon XP platform was enjoying its peak at the moment. At the time it made a lot of sense to say it, with no real chipset advances on the horizon and no new CPU's from AMD to top the XP3200+ model that currently sits at the top of its range.
But when today's test subject arrived, it gave me cause to rethink my previous statements. A quick look at the Socket A platform and its future points not only to new chipsets from NVIDIA, SiS and VIA, but also to future CPUs next year. According to a recent technology roadmap, XP3400+, XP3600+ and XP3800+ may all be released next year for the Socket A platform, as AMD gets a grip on new process technology and continues to support 32-bit Athlon XP in parallel to Athlon 64, something I wasn't expecting.
My own long held traditional view of AMD as a technology company, one that's only able to support mass production of a single CPU architecture range, may ultimately turn out to be false, as Athlon 64 gains acceptance and, crucially, existing customers demand support for a platform that's already seen significant success. Indeed, AMD can't afford to drop support for the market that gave it the ability to create Athlon 64, since in the consumer space it's those customers who are most likely to upgrade to Athlon 64 in the future, compared to any other consumer market segment. Brand loyalty plays a part.
So the roadmap indication of the new CPU triplet in 2004, along with current production of Thorton cores to satisfy low end Socket A customers, means there's every reason for the platform to have extended life, beyond what I first thought not too long ago.
The roaring market success of NVIDIA's nForce2 chipset is certainly one of the main reasons behind the continued and deserved popularity of Socket A PC systems. With all the major players cutting their teeth on early nForce, second tier board makers joining the party in a big way with nForce2 and finally the recent production of cutting edge boards based on nForce2 Ultra 400, you'd be forgiven for thinking that new chipsets would be needed before the introduction of anything new.
DFI (Diamond Flower International) don't subscribe to that school of thought however. With their original nForce2 Ultra 400 LanParty board as a base, one that garnered good praise from Tarinder and many other reviewers, they've sought to bring it just a little more up to date, adding some new features, taking some away and tweaking things just enough to warrant a new product denomination.
It's that LanParty NFII Ultra B that I'm looking at today.