There is nothing dirty nor wrong about having a social conscience.
What to do? Recycle it if it cannot be used for any other purpose. It does have hazardous materials in both the creation and destruction. But recycling 1 part every few years versus an entire motherboard + cpu in the same time period is night and day.
You're selectively reading here, I listed 3 great ways to re-purpose a cpu/ram/mobo combination.
You're correct. But I would attribute this more than anything as someone said.. intel depreciating socket systems quickly. I wish my older cpus would be that overpriced.
Oh also; I've had the same issues with AMD. If you wait long enough(long enough is usually 3-ish years) to upgrade you're almost guaranteed to be using a different socket. Maybe AMD has been better in this regard recently, but that would be the exception, not the rule.
Ram standards change, bus requirements change, you're going to need to swap sockets at some point, it would be great if there was some uber standard that meant your motherboard and socket spec would last 10+ years, but its just not the reality of the situation.
There are currently 5 different socket types for AMD desktop cpus on newegg, only currently-in-production models (not counting various sockets that have gone obsolete in the last 5 or so years). I don't keep up with AMD much anymore so I don't know how compatible those 5 are with various cpus, but its worth noting.
CPU's from the plus sockets are compatible with the prior generation socket. AM3+ works in socket AM3 and AM3 works in socket AM2+. And of course AM2+ works in AM2. AM3 has DDR2 and DDR3 RAM controllers. Very upgrade friendly.
The FM1 and FM2 sockets are for APU's. They're basically meant to be paired with OpenCL to compete with Nvidia's CUDA, I believe.
The funny part is, the "sky is falling" crowd are freaking out about pure speculation. Intel plans on making boards with an integrated CPU - like they already do with their Atom processors. So it really just sounds like they may be giving up on Atom.
Replies
You're selectively reading here, I listed 3 great ways to re-purpose a cpu/ram/mobo combination.
I know you did, and they are great options, but there was no reason to start that section how you did except as sarcasm.
Oh also; I've had the same issues with AMD. If you wait long enough(long enough is usually 3-ish years) to upgrade you're almost guaranteed to be using a different socket. Maybe AMD has been better in this regard recently, but that would be the exception, not the rule.
Ram standards change, bus requirements change, you're going to need to swap sockets at some point, it would be great if there was some uber standard that meant your motherboard and socket spec would last 10+ years, but its just not the reality of the situation.
There are currently 5 different socket types for AMD desktop cpus on newegg, only currently-in-production models (not counting various sockets that have gone obsolete in the last 5 or so years). I don't keep up with AMD much anymore so I don't know how compatible those 5 are with various cpus, but its worth noting.
The FM1 and FM2 sockets are for APU's. They're basically meant to be paired with OpenCL to compete with Nvidia's CUDA, I believe.