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Comment by ptrptr | Hacker News Reader

Many sockets? From 2017 there is only one - AM4 and it's future-proof.

Future proof? People still say that? Nothing in computing is future proof as evidenced by the many different connector/socket types in just the last couple years.

How many sockets has AMD had in "just the last couple years"?

Right, the AM3 socket started being sold February 2009, and AM3+ was entirely compatible with that.

[edit] Also: FM2, targeting a different range of performance, came out in 2012. Again, FM2+ was backwards compatible there too. Still five years since a non-backwards-compatible AMD chipset.

You might be thinking about Intel's practices.

To be fair, after AM3 there was also FM1, FM2, FM2+, AM1 and AM2.

AM1/2 are older than AM3. And you're right that FM1/2/2+ exist, but FM2 came out in 2012 and FM2+ was backwards compatible with FM2 CPUs. FM chipsets targeted a different range of performance, so I consider the updates to those chipsets orthogonal to the AM series.

Thanks for pointing out the FM series, though; I've modified my comment to reflect this.

Made a mistake there, you are right, partly. The AM2 is indeed the older AM3, I meant only the AM1, which was a recent platform for some processors with a low TDP. Not very known, it is no surprise it wasn't on your radar.

AM1 was a competitor to Intel's Atom chips. Which have no socket at all!

AM1 was very niche, but a socket for ~20W CPUs is outstanding. You can pair any AM1 motherboard (down to $20 crap) with any AM1 CPU ($20 crap to $100 less crap). Good for HTPCs and NAS machines... when you need a "serious" Raspberry Pi ish machine with x86 compatibility, AM1 was my choice.

I agree. Those were nice cpus and it is not a bad thing that they had a socket. I did not list them as a negative point, but to show that AMD had more sockets in the last time than AM3+, which could maybe partly explain OPs misconception that AMD spread their cpus over them more than Intel. When FM2+ got upgrades while AM3+ got them as well, it was indeed a strange split. That is was nothing compared what Intel does with their platform segmentation seems to have got lost.

Future in computing means 3-5 years. Everything else is just a day dream.

In the time between AM2 and AM3 AMD's socket strategy was pretty straight forward. Don't know what they tried with FM/FS stuff. I am looking forward to the success of AM4.

They say that am4 will be their platform for coming years.

1151 already has a massive range of CPU to select from, AM4 as only got Ryzen 3,5 and 7 which are not very budget right now.

1151 has the budget options right now, yes you can get a Ryzen 3 and upgrade to Ryzen 7 in future but the performance bump bang per buck will be less in my opinion.

> 1151 already has a massive range of CPU to select from, AM4 as only got Ryzen 3,5 and 7 which are not very budget right now.

AM4 has just been released while 1151 has been around for some time. If I plan to upgrade later on, I would rather buy a newly released socket.

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