Quoting Unregistered

But I don't think Socket940 will be big in the enthusiast market. Sure some will ofcourse get it, just like there are allready some enthusiasts that have Dual Pentium III/Athlon MP/Xeon/Opteron systems. But I think most enthusiast will get dual core Socket939 Athlons, that probobly will be released in late 2005.
Some may want/need ECC memory and get Socket940 instead or need more then one dualcore processor for the specialized personal use, but I think the Socket939 platform will be more popular.

Funny thing about enthusiasts...we all look for the best deal and sometimes whine about the high cost...but tally up what we actually spend on the entire box. It'll be much more than the average user. We're funny that way.

You are on target that Socket 940 will not be as popular with the enthusiast. Socket 940 wasn't designed for the enthusiast really. Socket 939 is better suited first and foremost because of its ability to use "normal" memory rather than the more expensive REG ECC.

Think of Socket 940 more for the performance workstation. It's a lot of horsepower with the benefits that pertain to ECC REG memory.

By coming out with a BIG impressive Socket 940 FX processor...it grabs the headlines. It says "Hey...look at AMD!". Then AMD can follow up with other products once they have the attention of the readers.

It's the same philosophy as having a loss leader item on sale at a store. The loss leader item brings shoppers in. Very few of them may purchase it but they are in the store...they'll most likely pick up other things while they are there.