Upgrading the CPUs in-office computers makes a lot of sense, while CPU technology has advanced a lot, other components live longer before they become obsolete.

 

The update poses a challenge because microprocessors come in different sizes and configurations of boxes, which require different plugs. If your computer’s motherboard socket cannot accept the form factor of a new CPU, you cannot use it.

 

 

What is CPU socket

Its CPU socket is similar to a light socket. A light socket makes your bulb part of a power grid, giving the bulb the power it needs to work.

The CPU socket makes a processor a part of your computer, providing power and offering a way for the CPU to communicate with the rest of your system hardware.

 

Latest computers joint the CPU socket on the motherboard. In the previous time, there was another CPU socket installation, including slot-mounted processors that you insert like a modern PCI card.

Today, however, it places its CPU in the socket, on the motherboard, and secures it with some kind of closure.

 

 

Types of CPU sockets

ZIF Sockets

Many processors currently use exceptional types of CPU sockets that are designed to allow you to place the chip while using “zero insertion force.” Instead of having tight connectors like a memory chip socket or a PCI card slot, these sockets allow you to virtually drop the CPU chip.

 

types of cpu sockets

 

Once it is in place, turn a lever that locks the CPU in place. To remove the chip, simply turn the lever to the other side and remove it.

 

Ball or pin

CPU sockets come in two main types: spherical grid matrix and pin grid matrix. PGA plugs look like a chessboard with many squares. They are designed to contain a CPU chip with a series of pins protruding from its bottom.

 

BGA matrix and terrestrial network sockets, which are generally used in laptops and test applications, are designed to accept CPU chips that do not have pins. BGA sockets often require the CPU to be welded in place.

 

 

Pin numbers and arrangements

The sockets differ in the number of CPU pins they can contain. Modern CPU chips transfer 32 or 64 bits of data billions of times per second to the memory of the computer, graphics system, storage, and other systems, which require hundreds or thousands of physical connections to support transfers.

 

 If you bought an 1155 pin processor, you must need an 1155 pin socket. In most cases, you cannot plug a CPU chip with fewer pins into a socket with more pins since the pins that the CPU has will not align with either the physical socket or its internal wiring.

 

 

Intel and AMD sockets

The two main CPU chip manufacturers, Intel, and Advanced Micro Devices use different and incompatible sockets. Intel sockets are generally called the number of pins they have, so a computer with a 2011 Socket CPU connection has a 2011-pin CPU.

 

types of cpu sockets

 

 

AMD sockets are usually numbered sequentially, with AM and FM family sockets available. Server CPUs and mobile CPUs of both manufacturers also frequently use different desktop processor sockets.

 

 

LGA and PGA

LGA and PGA can be understood as opposites. The (LGA) contains a socket with pins on which the processor is placed.

PGA (“pin grid matrix”), on the other hand, places the pins in the processor, which then inserts into a socket with properly placed holes.

 

In the era of modern computing, Intel CPUs use LGA sockets, while AMD CPUs use PGA. However, there are notable exceptions to that rule. For example, the monstrous AMD Threadripper uses Socket TR4 (short for Threadripper 4), which is an LGA socket.

TR4 is only the second AMD LGA socket. Previous Intel CPUs, such as Pentium, Pentium 2 and Pentium 3, used a PGA socket.

 

 

BGA

There is also a BGA connector, which means “ball grid array”. The BGA technique permanently connects the processor to the motherboard during production, which makes updates impossible.

 

A BGA socket and a motherboard may cost less, but there are very few equivalents between consumer BGA products and LGA and PGA.

 

In addition, BGA is technically not a socket because it is a permanent motherboard function. You can normally change an LGA or PGA CPU. It is still worth mentioning the BGA sockets since it fulfills the same function.

 

Several years ago there was a rumor that Intel was going to put the LGA socket out of service. Intel LGA sockets would be phased out after the fourth-generation Intel Haswell CPUs. It never happened, and Intel still develops CPU for LGA sockets