DailyTech - AMD's Next-gen Socket F Revealed

Submit News

Hardware AMD's Next-gen Socket F Revealed
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - February 23, 2006 5:02 PM

46 comment(s) - last by NullSubroutine.. on Mar 2 at 6:04 PM

New retention mechanism

1207 pins

AMD's new LGA-1207 is ready for quad-core Opterons

Although at this time, details are scarce, we are able to reveal some images of AMD's next-generation Opteron socket, called Socket F. AMD's Socket F will be a LGA-type socket with 1207 pins, and is an entirely new design from current Opteron sockets. We've read that the new socket will be used for upcoming dual-core Opterons as well as quad-core Opterons. The new socket comes with an updated retention mechanism.

Intel adopted the LGA socket design with Prescott to reduce cost and also to reduce the defect rate on processors. After all, would you rather scrap a $600 CPU for a bent pin, or a $100 motherboard for a bent land grid? A few days ago, we got some pictures of the upcoming Intel 771 LGA socket for Xeon motherboards.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

More Likely To be Damaged =\

By BillyBatson on 2/24/2006 3:05:28 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
After all, would you rather scrap a $600 CPU for a bent pin, or a $100 motherboard for a bent land grid?

I understand that this reduces the cost for cpu makers. I understand that this increases the cost of mobo's. I also understand that IF a pin or land grid is to be damaged it would be better if it was a land grid on a mobo... HOWEVER in my experience, and from first accounts i have hear, it is far more likely for a Land Grid to be damaged than a pin increasing your odds of damaging something rather than nothing... especially fi you remove and reinstall your cpu often.

RE: More Likely To be Damaged =\

By Questar on 2/24/2006 9:15:29 AM , Rating: 2

Hardly. The whole point is that LGA is LESS likely to be damaged during multiple insertions.

Parent

RE: More Likely To be Damaged =\

By TheLiberalTruth on 2/24/2006 5:31:32 PM , Rating: 3

You must realize that as you increase the number of pins, each pin becomes smaller, and as the pins decrease in size, they also decrease in strength, making it MORE likely that the pins will be bent than a land grid. Try taking a pre-Pentium processor (skt 486, 1, 2, 3) and bend one of their pins. The things are like small tree trunks. Then take a modern CPU, ie: skt 478, 754, 939 and bend one of their pins. All it takes is a light touch and it bends.

Parent

RE: More Likely To be Damaged =\

By Chuckles on 2/27/2006 10:02:13 AM , Rating: 2

I don't know about the old 80x86's, but I have found it easier to bend the pins on old 68020's, 40's and original Pentium's than it is to bend the pins on an Athlon or 74XX Daughter-cards. I would attribute this due to the height of the pins (bending resistance goes like 1/L^3) and the fact that the pins are much more closely packed on modern processors.
Of course, it's that much more of a pain to bend a bent pin back into proper orientation on a modern processor.

Parent

RE: More Likely To be Damaged =\

By Shining Arcanine on 2/26/2006 2:00:00 PM , Rating: 2

Currently when you take a heatsink off a motherboard, the CPU tends to come with it. That cannot be very good for the pins' longetivity. With this new land grid design, the CPU is locked into the socket meaning that it will not come with the heatsink, so the pins have a higher longetivity with the new LGA design and it is not the end of the world like everyone claims.

Parent

"Folks that want porn can buy an Android phone." -- Steve Jobs