Why aren't other chips socketable?

[Sathsayin]

I know that they are not now! But was just curious if at anytime there has been a time period where intel sold say there Cpu. Then There chipset as a replacable chip like the cpu!!!.

If not then I think it would be a good Idea!

I think that it would be a good market to say sell certain features and limit others and it would allow us to have a better heatsink for it if it was socketable.

I Like the idea a replacable chipset becasue of the fact if you burnout your board all you have to do is replace the chip. It would open a new market for huge heatsinks to overclock yoru chipset etc etc etc...

Now I know a high percentage is the chips on a motherboard and that the board is designed around each chip in order to accomadate its features. So upgradeing your chipset would be limited becasue if your board didn't have firewire etc... but the newchipset did....

But it would be nice to be able to buy a p45 soketed chip if you burn yours out etc...
I figure the chip is 60 percent of a board. Plus what if they don't make that board are not anymore.

Also Yeah if your chipset burns out you would have to get a newboard not neccesarly a new computer so it wouldn't dampen sales much if widely accepted.

besides how hard would it be to add pins then insert it into place like the cpu and add a plastic support for the heatsink.

Just curious what you guys thought.

Also why can't they external l3 chips of say a certan kb on up to a several mb's that way you could overclock certain parts of the cpu? say buy a 2ghz cpu with an onboard 512kb cache chip. Then have an exteranl avaialbe socket for those who want 6mb of cache that is on a side socket with its on heatsink?
That way we can overclock the 2ghz cpu to 4 ghz and and buy a hefty cache of assorted chips. 1mb 2mb 3mb.... etc.

 

[jeremyshaw]

lead length (voltage drop/latency), contact issue (like a poorly made contact) is all I can really think of.

The more evil route is to suggest:
forced upgrades.

But also:
It's probably easier to design a system that has as few changing parts as possible (CPU, RAM), as per the KIS principle

 

[Sathsayin]

lead length (voltage drop/latency), contact issue (like a poorly made contact) is all I can really think of.

The more evil route is to suggest:
forced upgrades.

But also:
It's probably easier to design a system that has as few changing parts as possible (CPU, RAM), as per the KIS principle

Ok i can understand the lead length thingy in theory..but the video card can get fed... throught the chipset 5 inches away. Why wouldn't an external cache chip work

I think forced upgrades...
Plus the fact somebody would buy a lowend proccsor of 2 ghz like i said and a huge cache and just up the calculator portion of the cpu to like 4ghz. and keep the cache at default.

But if you notice the trend. the cache cost more on a cpu more then the speed does! Im betting they don't do it for this reason not that they can't

As far as the being easier and fewer parts. I think adding the socket to the chipset would be a nice feature its only a socket. besides what if the board is crap but the chip is good/vice versa. if your chip is bad and you send in your board for repair? Most of the time they replace it if its the chip.

 

[Dangman]

Sounds an awful lot like chaos computing:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1031914810&postcount=6

I Like the idea a replacable chipset becasue of the fact if you burnout your board all you have to do is replace the chip. It would open a new market for huge heatsinks to overclock yoru chipset etc etc etc...

If the board is burned out, why would you replace the chipset? Wouldn't it make more sense to replace the board?

 

[Sathsayin]

Sounds an awful lot like chaos computing:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1031914810&postcount=6



If the board is burned out, why would you replace the chipset? Wouldn't it make more sense to replace the board?

yeah I can see the irony in that sentence!

I guess i meant more or less if you or overclocking and you kill your chipset or it gets flaky... but they don't make your board anymore! but tons of cheap crappy boards with a good chipset is still being produced. If all of them were socketable you could buy a cheap board and pop the chip off of it.


I

 

[Menelmarar]

Sockets raise cost and board complexity.
You can already get aftermarket northbridge heatsinks in some cases, same with GPU's which aren't socketable. Custom third party heatsinks are still made and sold.

If your chipset burns out, it's likely covered by the 3year warranty, you get your motherboard replaced. If it's older than that 1. you're not going to be able to find your exact chipset in stock to replace it 2. your system is old enough to be due an upgrade.

External cache is a thing from the past and eliminated. It is much slower. High speed internal cache is where the efficiency and speed benefit comes from. You can't have the high speeds and tight timing if it's not integrated very closely.

 

[Sathsayin]

well what about socketed gpu's ?

I know it would require boards to handle more power and be more complex but. right now each card is more complicated and complex. why not shift it.

 

[Dangman]

I guess i meant more or less if you or overclocking and you kill your chipset or it gets flaky... but they don't make your board anymore! but tons of cheap crappy boards with a good chipset is still being produced. If all of them were socketable you could buy a cheap board and pop the chip off of it.

Uh huh. How often do you kill your chipsets/northbridge/southbridge?

well what about socketed gpu's ?

I know it would require boards to handle more power and be more complex but. right now each card is more complicated and complex. why not shift it.

Huh? That last sentence doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, if you take a close look at a video card, it is composed of many many different parts such as VRAM, mosfets, GPU itself, memory interfaces,. Essentially, a video card is basically a mostly self contained system. Everything, including the PCB, is designed to work together as is. Introducing a socketed GPU would just add unneeded complexity such as whether or not there is enough VRAM to feed the GPU, enough memory bandwidth, enough power requirements etc, etc.

Finally, I think this thread from over a year ago covers most of the reasons why a modular or socketed GPU would not work well:
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=59781

 

[Sathsayin]

Uh huh. How often do you kill your chipsets/northbridge/southbridge?


Huh? That last sentence doesn't make sense to me.

Anyway, if you take a close look at a video card, it is composed of many many different parts such as VRAM, mosfets, GPU itself, memory interfaces,. Essentially, a video card is basically a mostly self contained system. Everything, including the PCB, is designed to work together as is. Introducing a socketed GPU would just add unneeded complexity such as whether or not there is enough VRAM to feed the GPU, enough memory bandwidth, enough power requirements etc, etc.

Finally, I think this thread from over a year ago covers most of the reasons why a modular or socketed GPU would not work well:
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=59781

ok forget putting the chip on the board.... why cant video cards have the chips socketable. if cpu's can span several years.. "(socket a) why can't gpu's on the same card.

lets say you have a card with 1gb ofgddr3 and you just want a core with directx 11 capabilitys why buy a new card with the same stuff for the most part.( I know that it's complicated and particuler to each card... but why does it have to be that way)... tons of motherboards are diffrent in a ton of ways but can take the same cpu. why can't we have upgradeable gpus on the cards.

 

[Sathsayin]

I guess my point is that it can be done if we wouldn't all think on the same grounds of trying to fit them in with the hardware now. I know it can be done. maybe certain things can't be put on chips. but I know that its possible to have an inbetween... for cache thats faster then ram.

for instance we have ram thats 2000mhz thats all the way across the board from the cpu but the bandwidth is far greater then the cache on the pentum 1(explain that)

but in the pentium days people still said the cache has to be near like everyone is saying. but the ram we have now is way faster then the l1 cache on the penteum1 itself.

 

[Menelmarar]

I guess my point is that it can be done if we wouldn't all think on the same grounds of trying to fit them in with the hardware now. I know it can be done. maybe certain things can't be put on chips. but I know that its possible to have an inbetween... for cache thats faster then ram.

for instance we have ram thats 2000mhz thats all the way across the board.

but in the pentium days people still said the cache has to be near like everyone is saying. but the ram we have now is way faster then the l1 cache on the penteum1 itself.

Yes, but do you think cache technology stagnated? Just like RAM development continued and got faster so did the cache that is inside of modern CPUs.

 

[Dangman]

I guess my point is that it can be done if we wouldn't all think on the same grounds of trying to fit them in with the hardware now. I know it can be done. maybe certain things can't be put on chips. but I know that its possible to have an inbetween... for cache thats faster then ram.

for instance we have ram thats 2000mhz thats all the way across the board from the cpu but the bandwidth is far greater then the cache on the pentum 1(explain that)

but in the pentium days people still said the cache has to be near like everyone is saying. but the ram we have now is way faster then the l1 cache on the penteum1 itself.

Note that outside of synthetic benchmarking, there's virtually no real world performance difference between DDR3 1333 and DDR3 2000.

ok forget putting the chip on the board.... why cant video cards have the chips socketable. if cpu's can span several years.. "(socket a) why can't gpu's on the same card.

lets say you have a card with 1gb ofgddr3 and you just want a core with directx 11 capabilitys why buy a new card with the same stuff for the most part.( I know that it's complicated and particuler to each card... but why does it have to be that way)... tons of motherboards are diffrent in a ton of ways but can take the same cpu. why can't we have upgradeable gpus on the cards.

Costs. Simple as that. Very high costs for something with relatively small gains. Look at the prices of video cards now. In addition, your "CPU can span several years" does not make sense or is applicable these days as CPU sockets themselves change every two years or so. And newer CPUs aren't always compatible with past sockets.

 

[Sathsayin]

Yes, but do you think cache technology stagnated? Just like RAM development continued and got faster so did the cache that is inside of modern CPUs.

Yeah, I think a good thing died myself if it was there in the beginning. I know the cache got faster internally. But the thing is I think that an exteranl cache would be an excellent way to have a cheaper faster system. for instance. if they had what is equal to a celeron!


e1200

1.6ghz 32kb l1, 512kb l2. (that was in a board that had a socket for a cahce chip)


when i want to upgrade i have to buy a new chip if i want a bigger cache.

what if they had an external socket for 1mb,2mb ,3mb,4mg ,8mb 12mb.

each with its own speed and memory size. that could be overclocked just like the cpu if someone wanted. Are someone like OEM's could leave the chip socket empty with the option to upgrade to 4mb cache.

yeah it would be slower then an onboard cache but what if it was right next to the cpu. It would be considerably faster then ram.

.

The reason it's not being done is simple. someone could by a 1.6ghz celeron wiht 32kb cache 51kb l2 and overclock it to 3.2ghz. with a 12mb cache instead of buying a 3.2ghz pentium with an exteranl 12mb cache

once you get a cpu to around3.6 ghz most games today need less cache.

 

[Dangman]

yeah it would be slower then an onboard cache but what if it was right next to the cpu. It would be considerably faster then ram.

Even it was right next to the CPU, it would still be considerably slower as information would still have to travel outside of the CPU. In addition, why would one want to increase the cache if the CPU core itself is slow to begin with? You're also ignoring the fact that a larger internal L2 cache barely scales well:
Does cache size really boost performance? @ Tom's
Influence of L2 Cache Size on Conroe Processors Performance @ XBit
UT3 Review: Cache Scaling: 1MB, 2MB, 4MB @ AnandTech
2MB or 4MB Cache? @ AnandTech
Influence of L2 Cache Size on Wolfdale Performance @ Xbit

In addition, look at the costs right now for a new CPU with a larger L2 cache. If you want a 1MB L2 cache, that'll only cost ya $53 for the Celeron E3200. A 2MB cache costs ya about $65 for the E5200. Those are pretty small costs increases for just the L2 cache. Once you factor in the difference in cores, performance etc, it's already pretty damn cheap to begin with get a fast system for cheap.

So what you want to do is add additional complexity for very small performance increases for supposedly lower prices even though current CPU prices are low to begin with?