(Column) – Earlier this week, we published a column with a focus on the future of sockets, especially from AMD. With the hardware industry changing rapidly everyday, companies are forming exclusive standards for the sake of exclusivity (though not in all situations). While that’s all well and good for the companies, it’s not such a fruitful situation for users who have to upgrade various components at any given time instead of just one to keep up with latest standards.

Thanks to AMD, the future may be promising with the company’s M2 socket design. In Socket Science from AMD, we stated, "Every once in a while when you are sitting alone, thinking back to all those years you’ve spent on technology, you realize that standards are meant to be updated and consistency isn’t the hardware industry’s strong suit. Intel had Socket 478, LGA 775 and considering the pattern; Intel would most likely change it yet again when it launches the next lineup. AMD, on the other hand, has Socket 754, 939 and 940 in its current generation, which adds to a lot of complication over something as particularly minute as the pin count. AMD is about to change all that, however, a lot of its customers will be left out feeling burnt."

The final outcome with a uniform standard would be less confusion and better upgradability factor for the enthusiast community. "For consumers, the obvious advantage is that since the platform is going to be uniform, they can purchase an M2 board and keep upgrading the processor at will, something they are not able to do currently. The details of the HyperTransport speeds and other specifications are of course an entirely different matter, but the possibilities are quite interesting nonetheless."

Click here to read Socket Science from AMD in full context.