cpu sockets, necessary evil or rogue business tactics?

[JimmiG]

No idea why 1156->1155 was necessary, or 1155->1150. But my guess would be it's a marketing reason as much as anything else. If you have a bunch of people sticking brand new SB i7s in their old 1156 motherboards with SATA2 and USB2, and maybe some slower interconnect tech or no PCI-E 2.0 support, or whatever, then the new CPUs don't have as much of a chance to shine.

It's all explained in posts further up this thread.

1156 to 1155 might sound like they only removed one pin to mess with us, but as explained above, there are other, major changes too.

1155 -> 1150 was necessary for the integrated VRM. I am however not convinced that moving to integrated VRM's was necessary for the desktop part. For SoCs and mobile chips, it might make sense, since it allows for lower-power C-states and slightly increased efficiency. With high-end desktop CPUs, nobody cares about 0.5W savings at idle. The big challenge with high-end desktop CPUs is keeping them cool at full load. Moving yet another heat-generating component to the CPU package seems counter-productive.

 

[Markfw]

Locking this 1.5 year old Thread. If someone has a current concern, create an updated thread.