It was a natural evolution for AMD to move from a Socket 7 K6-x to the familiar Slot-A Athlon. By moving the cache off the motherboard, they cut down on latency and at the same time used cache chips that scaled with the CPU's core frequency. Unfortunately, the design was doomed before it was even released. Using the Slot design cost more to manufacture and only alleviated the cache problem temporarily, which is why AMD's Slot-A production lasted less than a year.

With the introduction of the new Athlon, however, AMD is returning to the socket design. With no off-die L2, there is no longer a need for Slot-A. Such a design allows for lower prices at the manufacturing level; meaning retail prices should reflect the savings. In addition, it will be easier to apply custom cooling solutions, since you won't be fumbling with metal faceplates or plastic cartridges.

This move doesn't bode well for everyone though. There is already an established pool of users with Athlon-based systems that might want to make the upgrade to the new arrival and not all of these people will be able to make this smooth transition. With the introduction of VIA's KX133 chipset, the Athlon platform was able to compete feature-for-feature with Intel's current offerings. Unfortunately, the KX133 became dated the moment AMD announced that the Thunderbird-based Athlons would be available on the retail market in socket form only.

Although we don't want to mercilessly crush any hope that the KX133 may be used in conjunction with a Slocket adapter, preliminary reports from AMD have indicated that the pair doesn't get along. So, while Slocket cards may become available, we wouldn't recommend making the investment until we can definitively prove that they work and without affecting stability.