don't know what it covers, but I was under the impression that socket changed from Merced to McKinley.
Yes. But the McKinley first shipped over two years ago and
all IPF OEMs targeted its socket/FSB interface for platform
development, not the Merced's. The few OEMs that shipped
Merced systems offered rebadged Intel 460GX (IIRC) based
systems.
And there needs to be change in either Xeon or Itanium to have a common platform.
Eventually sockets and interfaces have to change, that's
the nature of progress. But with IPF the I2 socket/interface
will have been kept stable for OEMs across four generations
of devices - McKinley, Madison, Madison 9M, and Montecito.
Compare that to say Alpha which changed every other device
generation.
That's not so good for AMD K8 line in general, but the server line is likely to say with Socket 940 for now (no change of socket on the horizon).
If you have an explanation how AMD can keep socket 940
unchanged and performance competitive for the next 3+ years
I'd love to hear it.
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