ECS is starting to manufacture motherboards where you can switch from an Intel to an AMD processor.ECS is really starting to court the entusiast market. First, they started releasing their Extreme series of motherboards (see our ECS KN1 Extreme review?for one example) - and now they are starting to make motherboards that can take either Intel or AMD processors. I have not seen flexibility like this since pre-historic times (S100 bus anyone?)
The "Elite Bus" on the FP88 let's users plug in a CPU module that overrides the processor resident on the motherboard. In the case of the FP88, it disables the on-board socket 775 and uses an Athlon installed on the CPU module instead.
The initial CPU module, the "A9S"?they call them "SIMA" cards) holds a socket 939 Athlon and DDR memory with a SiS 756 Nothbridge. What's interesting is there is theoretically nothing stopping ECS from later making a Socket M or Socket F board for future Athlon processors, or for upcoming Yonah or Intel processors - thereby letting a user upgrade their system just by changing the CPU module.
They are also planning an "A4S" for Socket 754 processors (SiS 756 Northbridge), and an "I9S" (SiS 649 Northbridge) for Socket 479 for Mobile Pentiums.
ECS also plans Athlon based boards that could later take?SIMA cards, and later ECS plans on offering a motherboard without a processor on it for the BTX form factor - this will let you pick your favorite CPU module - sort of mix-and-match approach to system board and processor, crossing manufacturers and sockets at will.
In case you are wondering how they do this - they share the SiS south bridge between the on-board processor and the CPU module, but have separate Northbridges. This makes sense - nVidia nForce for Intel boards do something similar, using AMD's Hypertransport to communicate between the P4 specific Northbridge and the nVidia Southbridge - except in that case, the Southbridge connects to an AMD CPU's Hypertransport directly instead of to a Northbridge.
Elitegroup's FP88 should be available within a month for an MSRP of $95 with the Athlon converter card priced at $50
Personally, I'm looking forward to putting one through its paces.
