4 ms·

After a decade doing embedded development for bleeding-edge SoCs and working with devkits with sockets for interchangeable chips... I was kinda shocked when I o

After a decade doing embedded development for bleeding-edge SoCs and working with devkits with sockets for interchangeable chips... I was kinda shocked when I once again built a gaming PC two years ago... These are antiquated connectors! Then again, I hear the sockets we use for the BGA chips I work with cost in the thousands of dollars (because custom-desiged), so I can kind of understand that the razor-thin margins the custom PC industry works with stays with cheap old connectors.

bri3d 9y ago
What socket was it? I think all modern sockets are LGA - and even before that, they were ZIF for a long time.
- shadowfacts 9y ago
  AMD processors still use PGA sockets, but they are ZIF.
  - lsc 9y ago
    Really? the last opteron I saw with a zif pga socket was an opteron 940, which was obsolete a decade ago. I haven't worked with the gaming amd sockets, but I bought a tonne of 2000 series opterons, socket F is LGA, and a few c32 and G34 opterons, all LGA.
    - m-p-3 9y ago
      My current CPU (AMD FX-8350) is a ZIF PGA Socket (AM3+)
      - stryk 9y ago
        And AM4 ("zen" architecture, not threadripper) is a _very_ similar looking and feeling ZIF socket - total pin count might be different, I'm not sure.
    - shadowfacts 9y ago
      The AM4[1] socket (for consumer processors) is PGA-ZIF. The TR4[2] (for enthusiast Threadripper processors) and the SP3[3] (for server Epyc processors) sockets, however, are LGA. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM4 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_TR4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_TR4 [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_SP3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_SP3
lsc 9y ago
>Then again, I hear the sockets we use for the BGA chips I work with cost in the thousands of dollars (because custom-desiged), so I can kind of understand that the razor-thin margins the custom PC industry works with stays with cheap old connectors. BGA means 'ball-grid array' - meaning it's an array of solder balls, meaning that ouside of testing, it will be soldered to the board... no socket required. Your sockets for testing are super expensive because they are taking a chip that was never meant to be socketed... and socketing it, which is pretty useful when you are testing the things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array

bri3d 9y ago

What socket was it? I think all modern sockets are LGA - and even before that, they were ZIF for a long time.

shadowfacts 9y ago
AMD processors still use PGA sockets, but they are ZIF.
- lsc 9y ago
  Really? the last opteron I saw with a zif pga socket was an opteron 940, which was obsolete a decade ago. I haven't worked with the gaming amd sockets, but I bought a tonne of 2000 series opterons, socket F is LGA, and a few c32 and G34 opterons, all LGA.
  - m-p-3 9y ago
    My current CPU (AMD FX-8350) is a ZIF PGA Socket (AM3+)
    - stryk 9y ago
      And AM4 ("zen" architecture, not threadripper) is a _very_ similar looking and feeling ZIF socket - total pin count might be different, I'm not sure.
  - shadowfacts 9y ago
    The AM4[1] socket (for consumer processors) is PGA-ZIF. The TR4[2] (for enthusiast Threadripper processors) and the SP3[3] (for server Epyc processors) sockets, however, are LGA. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_AM4 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_TR4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_TR4 [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_SP3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_SP3

lsc 9y ago

>Then again, I hear the sockets we use for the BGA chips I work with cost in the thousands of dollars (because custom-desiged), so I can kind of understand that the razor-thin margins the custom PC industry works with stays with cheap old connectors. BGA means 'ball-grid array' - meaning it's an array of solder balls, meaning that ouside of testing, it will be soldered to the board... no socket required. Your sockets for testing are super expensive because they are taking a chip that was never meant to be socketed... and socketing it, which is pretty useful when you are testing the things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_grid_array