Quote:
Originally Posted by kiwidude
Personally it really wouldn't bother me to not have CPU upgrade capability, as in 20 odd years of building PCs I have not once chosen to do a CPU upgrade alone. I always want the latest and greatest, and thanks to Intel changing the sockets every frigging time that means a new motherboard anyway. Or other stuff forces desire for a motherboard change - like USB 2.0->3.0, AGP->PCI-Express, memory chips, UEFI bios, form factor size changes and so on.
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The upgrade bit is probably true for most people, even people who build their own systems. On the other hand, choosing a separate mainboard and processor at the time of purchase is important to at least some of us. Different mainboards have different configurations for memory, expansion slots, ports and so forth. Compatibility with alternative operating systems and the firmware is also an issue for some builders.
Chipsets can also be important just to have current spec hardware. My last laptop purchase was a bugger because a lot of laptops on the market still have older onboard video, are limited to USB 2, and so forth. None of that was an issue while building my last desktop. It was a matter of deciding what I wanted and buying it. Now if desktop mainboards become more like laptop mainboards (simply because it is too expensive to offer a broad range of configurations), that option ceases to exist.