WBMW, PCI-Express and DDR2 are at best one step sideways and a step back in cost.
Won't the cost issue be solved with ramp-up of volume? After all, AGP, PCI, and DDR SDRAM have been in the market for how many years now?
As for the step sideways, well, what are we really expecting here in terms of performance? A sudden jump in the benchmarks? I don't recall many applications today really being limited by the bandwidth of peripherals like graphics and I/O.
Besides, the same arguments were made back when AGP was released, that no one needs the bandwidth, that PCI video cards were good enough (remember Voodoo2?), that it was another attempt by Intel to control the platform. It took a year or so before AGP graphics cards demonstrated real advantages over their PCI counterparts. And that was back when performance mattered more in the marketplace than it does now.
Relax, the only boneheaded decision that Intel has to live with right now is the power-hungry Prescott and its server derivatives. The sooner Intel can move Dothan to the desktop, the better.
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