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Follow us on FacebookRumor: Intel kills off the desktop PCs ?
@ 2012/11/27In a story that SemiAccurate has been following for several months, Broadwell will not come in an LGA package, so no removable CPU. The news was first publicly broken by the ever sharp PC Watch, english version here, but the news has been floating in the backchannel for a bit now. The problem? This information wasn’t floating around the OEMs or the majority of the PC ecosystem, they had no clue. What does all of this mean? Quite a bit.
The most direct effect is that of Broadwell, the 14nm successor to next year’s Haswell CPU, will essentially shut out the enthusiast. Motherboards will still be available, but the CPUs that come with them will be soldered down. In addition to being a inventory management nightmare, OEMs won’t buy CPUs any more, the few remaining mobo vendors and ODMs will. As a side effect, it also cuts the enthusiast out of the picture for good.
The most direct effect is that of Broadwell, the 14nm successor to next year’s Haswell CPU, will essentially shut out the enthusiast. Motherboards will still be available, but the CPUs that come with them will be soldered down. In addition to being a inventory management nightmare, OEMs won’t buy CPUs any more, the few remaining mobo vendors and ODMs will. As a side effect, it also cuts the enthusiast out of the picture for good.
Of course, we already know what it's like to build a PC with a processor soldered onto the motherboard. Such boards are widely available today—just search Newegg or Amazon for Mini-ITX Intel Atom or AMD E-series offerings. The reduced flexibility is unfortunate, but it doesn't make building your own PC impractical—not even remotely