AGP video cards will be around for quite a long time. My guess is at least 5
more years. Ram for new motherboard will also probably be available for
at least 5 years.

Rusty wrote:

There have been allot of post with questions regarding upgrading to a AMD64
system not just on this board but all over the net. I have been around and
OCing since the 486 days and have seen some wonderful improvements in
computer hardware. What I have noticed over the years is that before the
release of a totally new system design that there are some prerelease
designs that hit the market.
1. 286 to 486 same design but faster ISA
2. Pentium to K6 same design PCI
3. Pentium III to first Athlon same design Slot / APG enhancement
4. P4 to Athlon XP same design lots of changes to memory bus better APG
north/south bridge enhancements
5. P5 ? to AMD64 ????? changes to memory bus better PCI removal of south
bridge north bridge enhancements
When hardware changed from the 486 to the Pentium/K6 there were some board
designs that were old technology with a new processor it took about one year
for the motherboard technology to catch-up. From Pentium/K6 to the Pentium
III/Athlon again it took about one year for the motherboard technology to
catch-up. From the Pentium III/Athlon to P4/Athlon XP it took about 6 to 8
months for the motherboard technology to catch-up. The time frame during
this transition period was reduced due to the input from AMD and Intel.
Intel became a major motherboard manufacture.

Between each major change new motherboard designs were released some good
but the majority were bad and became obsolete not long after their release
only to be replace by the standard for that processor release at that time.
Such as EDO-SDRAM-DDR, ISA-VESA-PCI-APG, socket-slot-socket. Every time a
motherboard replacement was needed to use the same processor during the
transition to the design that would become the standard for that processor
be it a K6 or a Athlon XP. The first Athlon XP boards used APG 2X and sdram
and were quickly replace with DDR ram and APG 8X. It appears that the same
thing is taking place with the release of the AMD64. First the 754 with DDR
ram and APG 8X then the 940 and now the 939 with DDR ram and APG 8X. It
has been said that the 939 boards will be the standard for the AMD64 and
soon those boards will have DDRII and PCIe (no APG).

What do you think will become the technological motherboard standard for the
AMD64 in the next year?

If I were to buy a AMD64 motherboard today, would I be buying a motherboard
that is equipped to handle the next generation of video cards, hard drives,
and multimedia add-on cards or would I be buying a motherboard that I would
have to replace to upgrade my video card and memory?