Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Why CPU Sockets CHANGE So Much”.
Have you been scrimping and saving for a new CPU You’ll be in for a bit of a nasty surprise once you realize that you also need a whole new motherboard just because those pesky CPU sockets just keep on changing., But why does this happen? I mean we’ve been using the same style of power outlet for a hundred years, even though our technology has improved by leaps and bounds., But we can’t seem to even make it two years without our CPU sockets changing.. So we went a quest for answers. And we’d like to thank Matthew, Hurwitz and Robert Hallock from AMD for their assistance.. It first helps to understand that each pin on the CPU is hard-wired for a certain purpose.. Some of them can be for power delivery. Others are for transmitting data, and each data pin is further wired to just one other motherboard bus, such as PCI Express or USB.. Finally, you might have some pins that are reserved for future use. In case the CPU manufacturer wants to add more functionality down. The road., For example, AMD did this by using some extra reserved pins to add PCI express 4.0 support in Zen 2..
So right away, you can see that the pin layout is designed without a whole lot of wiggle room for changes in the platform., Even if it does have some reserved pins., A faster bus somewhere else on your system. A new USB revision, for example, might require more pins for both power and data than your current socket has., Necessitating an overhaul and a new socket design.. But even if you could technically use the existing socket with new features, power draw can be real issue.. This is a suspected reason why Intel had to increase its pin count from 1151 to 1200 for its new 10th Gen processors.
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