Leaked Pictures of Socket F

Robbedoeske writes "Dutch language site Tweakers.net has the first pictures of AMD's Socket F, aka Socket 1207. This socket introduces support for DDR 2 memory and some say it will offer the ability for a integrated PCI Express controller on the cpu. Socket F is meant to be used in systems with more than one Opteron cpu."

Is that a ball grid array I see

[dremspider]

It looks similiar to Intel's new design with the pins, hopefully it isn't as easy to damage.

Re:AMD Beating The Crap Out Of Intel?

[pivo]

How the hell can AMD be making such better chips and companies like Dell still selling Intel powered crap?

That's easy: Marketing

How do they do it? Volume Volume VOLUME!

[caveat]

While AMD and IBM make technically superior chips, they simply don't have the mass manufacturing capability to compete with Chipzilla; a side effect of the huge capacity is the ability hae the quantity of procs available to offer deep discounts to high-volume customers (e.g. Dell and Apple) and still make money.

On a side note, the stuff due to be out of Intel by the time Apple switches the PowerMacs doesn't look too shabby at all - of course, we'll have to see what IBM/AMD are offering to compete.

Back to the '80s

[cronot]

The first thing that came into my mind after reading the parent and its replies, is that this is coming closer to what microcomputers used to be back in the 80s, with the MSX, ZX-Spectrum, etc. Well, maybe the keyboard will remain detachable, as will any User Interactive peripheral, but everything else used to be much closer to the CPU back then.

Re:AMD Beating The Crap Out Of Intel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing money. Intel writes big checks to Dell as "co-operative marketing" funds. Also, Intel maintains its own sales force, including technical support for developers, on the corporate level. Guess how they decide which HW platform to recommend - who's laptops they show up with.

Finally, Dell isn't much of an engineering company - they need to keep they're offerings simple - both for their supply chain and support. Helps to keep it easy and cheap to acquire and sell.

Re:next step?

[cyxxon]

Hm but what will then happen to my coworkers who always refer to it as "the harddrive" (and in reality store all their stuff on a mapped network drive)?

Now think about it....

[RJabelman]

A single chip system isn't going to need 5000 pins, as there'll be nothing else (internal) to connect to :)

Re:Yet another socket

[Jendi]

There really aren't that many to choose from -- your choices are basically defined by "server vs desktop" motherboard (eg socket 940 dual opteron/registered memory or socket 939 desktop) and "AMD vs Intel". After that, sure you'll want to stretch your current investment as far as possible, but at some point you have to bite the bullet and replace your motherboard and memory, how else are you going to keep getting loads more lovely memory bandwidth for your system?

IMHO, I'm going to try and wait until AMD M2 motherboards are available for a vaguely sensible price, and move to DDR2 memory with a dualcore Athlon X2 ... hopefully some time next year -- I reckon that will be the next platform with as much longevity as Socket A gave me.

Now I understand the move to pin pads

[kriston]

I can't tell from the photographs--is this socket going to be a pinless processor like Intel's Socket-775 or are we stuck with over 1000 fragile whisker-like pins? I started appreciating my new Socket-775 system after I installed my Socket-754 with all the fragile pins on it. At first I thought it was silly but after straightening out more than a couple whisker-thin pins on my Athlon 64 CPUs I'm hoping Socket-F follows the precedent of using pin pads.

Re:Ewwww

[ichigo 2.0]

Isn't integrating graphics on-chip a waste of transistors then? Unless Intel has given up on gamers and are aiming their processors to low-end users and workstations...

Re:Now I understand the move to pin pads

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

after straightening out more than a couple whisker-thin pins on my Athlon 64 CPUs

If you are straightening pins, you're not being nearly careful enough. Socket 754 pins are considerably beefier than, for example, socket 468, and few people complained about Pentium 4 Northwood being easy to damage.

LGA is more about better electrical connectivity than preventing bent pins. Remember that most CPUs go into OEM systems, which are aseembled by people who are much better at inserting CPUs that you are.