Monday, March 28th 2016
More AMD Socket AM4 Technical Details Emerge
More details of AMD's upcoming common socket for both its desktop APUs and high-end CPUs emerged from a recent article by Italian tech-site Bits-n-Chips. To begin with, AM4 will be an µOPGA (pin-grid array), in which the pins will continue to be located on the processor package, and contact points on the socket. The package will be square, and 40 mm in length, making it about as big as a current socket FM2+ package. It will have a pin-count of 1,331 pins, a big increase from the 942 pins of AM3+, and 906 pins of FM2+. AMD could continue to develop LGA sockets for its multi-socket capable Opteron processors based on the "Zen" architecture.
The AM4 platform layout will be functionally closer to that of the FM2+ than the AM3+. Besides the integrated memory controller, the northbridge will be entirely located on the processor die; and so the HyperTransport main system bus will be wired internally. Besides hundreds of electrical pins, the AM4 pin-map will consist of memory I/O, integrated graphics I/O, PCI-Express, and the chipset bus; besides other low-level system I/O interfaces. The memory controller on some of the first AM4 chips, such as "Summit Ridge," will natively support DDR4-2400 MHz, and DDR4-2933 MHz through overclocking.
Sources:
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The AM4 platform layout will be functionally closer to that of the FM2+ than the AM3+. Besides the integrated memory controller, the northbridge will be entirely located on the processor die; and so the HyperTransport main system bus will be wired internally. Besides hundreds of electrical pins, the AM4 pin-map will consist of memory I/O, integrated graphics I/O, PCI-Express, and the chipset bus; besides other low-level system I/O interfaces. The memory controller on some of the first AM4 chips, such as "Summit Ridge," will natively support DDR4-2400 MHz, and DDR4-2933 MHz through overclocking.
50 Comments on More AMD Socket AM4 Technical Details Emerge
However, 1331 pins ofcourse sounds tremendous. More power, less perhepials such as external northbridge, but less choice on motherboard vendors as well.
I.e a extreme motherboard would have the cherry picked northbridge chipsets, and now it's just a matter of silicon luck to have a NB that pushed beyond 300MHz FSB/HTT.
Anyone not reading the manual shoud'nt be installing CPU's at all. :)
A big problem with the Skylake bending was the very thin PCB on the processor. The other issue was that there are no pins, and no support, under the middle of the processor. If the pins covered the entire base of the processor/socket, skylake would have not issue with bending.
If the pins where on the Skylake it wouldn't matter if there where no pins in the edge or in the middle.
Anyway with 1331 thin pins my opinion in this matter could change. Hope it never happens of course.
Not having support under the middle of the CPU, where the majority of the force from the cooler is focused is what caused skylake to bend.
It's all or nothing for AMD now -- and if this will be another stagnant launch like the Faildozer, I will put my PC building hobby to rest for at least another 5-8 years (or until Intel release something that's at least 3-4x faster than my current CPU, whichever comes first)...which won't be good for either Intel nor AMD. DX12 and especially Vulkan, along with the current gen consoles -- will make it that much easier to hold out for a real upgrade.
ark.intel.com/products/88195/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz
From what AMD's roadmap stated, they plan on making at least 3 generations of Zens and they don't have the luxury that Intel do by just bringing out a new socket with a new line-up of chips -- so AM4 needs to have enough features over Skylake to make it a far better option and hopefully prompt Intel to launch a new socket...otherwise this will all be a huge waste of time for them.
They NEED a platform & CPU line-up that beats Skylake enough to prompt a new socket out of Intel -- to give them the much needed time to claw back market share and sell enough motherboards to hold people over from switching to Intel. Otherwise if it doesn't -- Intel sit back, introduce some minor price cuts in response and rub salt into the wound with their next socket release (putting the final nail in the coffin for AMD's CPU division).
But only on a small printed board with only the CPU weld on it then you just slide in the slot just like a video card , no more bending pins on the CPU or Motherboard
It would probably be better for CPU heat dissipation as it would stand up like a video card & probably help to keep the Motherboard cooler also?
Anyhow just a thought...
Mikey