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Cathar · 11-20-2002, 06:59 PM

It's not so much the weight of the block, but the added rotational torque provided by the water-filled tubing that hangs off the block. Of course every smart person will support their tubing properly.

The thing with socket tabs I've found is this. Maybe 19/20 times it'll be okay, but there'll always be that 1/20 case of a board where the tabs are just weaker through manufacturing variances, and you go to a LAN, hit a few bumps on the way, and "pop". It's happened to quite a few people.

Swiftech were the ones to really show the benefits of the 4 mounting holes by dropping a case off a building. Try that with a socket. Not that people go around throwing cases about, but accidents happen (slip while carrying the case, etc).

I personally view it like this. AMD have dropped the 4 mounting hole spec and left it in the hands of the mobo makers. Now the mobo makers all know that almost every man and his dog who overclocks uses the 4 holes for their cooling gear and so they'll continue to provide the holes as before on all their boards aimed at the enthusiast/overclocking crowd, and we can see that this is the case today. All serious overclocking focussed boards have the 4 mounting holes, despite the specification being dropped 4 months or so ago.

It really becomes an issue of market breadth. Making your product to sell on the widest variety of platforms, but I personally see it as targetting your market. I'd hazard a guess that 90% or more of the people who water-cool are using the 4 holes already, and if they plan to upgrade will be ensuring they buy a motherboard with the 4 holes.

I think it's just a bit of scaremongering by [H]ardOCP. Abit, Asus and Epox all know who their market is. They won't be cutting them off at the wrist. Heck, even Leadtek is releasing nForce 2 board with the 4 holes and they're specifically an enthusiast targetted brand.

When AMD release the specs for the Hammer's finally we'll all be a lot happier. Let just hope that they don't drop them again 12 months into the future and cause this crap again eh?

11-20-2002, 06:59 PM	#58
Cathar Thermophile Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 2,538	It's not so much the weight of the block, but the added rotational torque provided by the water-filled tubing that hangs off the block. Of course every smart person will support their tubing properly. The thing with socket tabs I've found is this. Maybe 19/20 times it'll be okay, but there'll always be that 1/20 case of a board where the tabs are just weaker through manufacturing variances, and you go to a LAN, hit a few bumps on the way, and "pop". It's happened to quite a few people. Swiftech were the ones to really show the benefits of the 4 mounting holes by dropping a case off a building. Try that with a socket. Not that people go around throwing cases about, but accidents happen (slip while carrying the case, etc). I personally view it like this. AMD have dropped the 4 mounting hole spec and left it in the hands of the mobo makers. Now the mobo makers all know that almost every man and his dog who overclocks uses the 4 holes for their cooling gear and so they'll continue to provide the holes as before on all their boards aimed at the enthusiast/overclocking crowd, and we can see that this is the case today. All serious overclocking focussed boards have the 4 mounting holes, despite the specification being dropped 4 months or so ago. It really becomes an issue of market breadth. Making your product to sell on the widest variety of platforms, but I personally see it as targetting your market. I'd hazard a guess that 90% or more of the people who water-cool are using the 4 holes already, and if they plan to upgrade will be ensuring they buy a motherboard with the 4 holes. I think it's just a bit of scaremongering by [H]ardOCP. Abit, Asus and Epox all know who their market is. They won't be cutting them off at the wrist. Heck, even Leadtek is releasing nForce 2 board with the 4 holes and they're specifically an enthusiast targetted brand. When AMD release the specs for the Hammer's finally we'll all be a lot happier. Let just hope that they don't drop them again 12 months into the future and cause this crap again eh?