Will Pentium 5 work on existing Pentium 4 (Socket 478) mobo

[Chris Hill]

On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 16:49:11 -0400, "Harry Muscle"
<fake@AT@e-mail.com> wrote:
I'm gonna be buying everything for a new system soon (something around the2.5Ghz area) however, I'm also planing out my upgrade strategy for thefuture. If I go with the an AMD system, I'm basically maxed out at thecurrently available 3200+ since the Athlon 64 will require a new mobo. SoI'm thinking of going the Intel way, but I can't find definative answers toa couple of questions.According to Toms Hardware the Pentium 5 (Prescott) will first come out in asocket 478 (Pentium 4 style). It won't be till end of next year that thePentium 5 will require a new socket and hence new mobo. However, what I'mwondering is ... since the P5 will use the same socket as the P4, can Iexpect that most P4 boards will work fine with the new P5? This way I wouldhave an upgrade path that is viable till the end of next year instead ofending in a few months when the Athlon 64 comes out.


I sure wouldn't count on it. I've never yet replaced a processor
without having to replace a mb. Upgrade path is a myth.

[Jaxtraw]

"Chris Hill" <hillco@earthlink.net.spamless> wrote in message
news:30b53c6eda0af93b6b9ae2635942e7d4@free.teranews.com... On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 16:49:11 -0400, "Harry Muscle" <fake@AT@e-mail.com> wrote:I'm gonna be buying everything for a new system soon (something around
the2.5Ghz area) however, I'm also planing out my upgrade strategy for thefuture. If I go with the an AMD system, I'm basically maxed out at thecurrently available 3200+ since the Athlon 64 will require a new mobo.
SoI'm thinking of going the Intel way, but I can't find definative answers
toa couple of questions.According to Toms Hardware the Pentium 5 (Prescott) will first come out
in asocket 478 (Pentium 4 style). It won't be till end of next year that thePentium 5 will require a new socket and hence new mobo. However, what
I'mwondering is ... since the P5 will use the same socket as the P4, can Iexpect that most P4 boards will work fine with the new P5? This way I
wouldhave an upgrade path that is viable till the end of next year instead ofending in a few months when the Athlon 64 comes out. I sure wouldn't count on it. I've never yet replaced a processor without having to replace a mb. Upgrade path is a myth.

I agree. I worried about the "upgrade path" the last but one machine I
built. But the fact is, by the time you come to upgrade everything has
advanced so far that the old mobo, and most of the rest of the machine too,
are antiques. E.g. my last machine was a PII 300 (built it when the 450 was
the fastest you could get BTW). That mobo, an abit BX7, went up in the end
to support PII or maybe PIII (I forget) 600. Just a doubling of speed for
more money on an already out of date computer. Not worth it.

The specs change so fast that you'll always need new "infrastructure" to
support a more advanced processor. Consider the rest of that machine (at the
time I thought it was pretty high-spec too); 8Mb ATI video card, 192Mb RAM
100MHz (3X64Mb 168pin), 4.3Gb and (a later addition) 17Gb 5400rpm HDs, 4X(!)
CD ROM ,ISA(!) 33k6(!) modem. etc. None of it worth installing in the
machine I built last year (1.8G Athlon, already out of date now).

Upgrading IMO rarely makes any economic sense. Add things to a machine to
increase the range of what it can do, sure. But replacements are generally
throwing away money. You'll never make it as good as a new one, and you'll
spend more money doing it too.

Ian