Monday, August 18th 2008
Common LGA-1366 Cooling Myths Busted
With the entry of the Core i7 Bloomfield series processors this September thru October, the computing world will witness the entry of a new motherboard processor socket, the 1366-pin Land Grid Array (LGA-1366). FrostyTech demystified the new socket in respect to the way coolers are to be designed to be compatible with it, which will have implications on a vast segment of DIY consumers since LGA-1366 is meant to be a high-performance flagship computing platform. There are two key factors at play:
Firstly, your LGA 775 cooler won't fit on the LGA 1366, reason being that for the LGA 775, the mount-holes on the motherboards for retention pins / bolt-through kits used to be 72 mm apart. For the LGA 1366 they are 80 mm apart. It wouldn't be wise improvising an adapter to make it work either, since the heatsink's contact area with the IHS will be reduced. For the LGA 775 it is 28.5 sq. mm while it's 32.0 x 35.0 mm (yes, it's rectangular).
Speaking of the cooler retention mechanism, some coolers could use spring-tensioned machine screws to attach the heatsink to a metal backing plate. Intel's stock cooler is found to use standard through-PCB plastic push-pin mounting brackets. There won't be a retention cage (of the sort found on the older Socket 478 motherboards).
Sources:
FrostyTech, Bit-Tech.net
- The layout and cooler-retention mechanism of the socket
- The area of contact between the cooler and the processor's integrated heatspreader (IHS).
Speaking of the cooler retention mechanism, some coolers could use spring-tensioned machine screws to attach the heatsink to a metal backing plate. Intel's stock cooler is found to use standard through-PCB plastic push-pin mounting brackets. There won't be a retention cage (of the sort found on the older Socket 478 motherboards).
36 Comments on Common LGA-1366 Cooling Myths Busted
As for me, I do NOT see this chip in my near future like some of the richer enthusiasts around here. If anything, when this comes out, I'll be buying up the 775 chips as their prices go down.
It looks like they could have easily made it compatible with previous coolers, and by doing it differently - I suspect a backhander by the cooling companies.
Also, that stock cooler looks ghey.
Intel have now changed the socket to go with an IMC, as well as triple channel ram - besides 775 was old hat, people were getting used to it :P
In lamens terms, as newer processors increase in performance, and compute more input/output operations per second, new processors are getting more and more powerful and eventually 'outgrow' their socket. The processor manufacturer releases new socket types with more pins so as not to artificially limit their new processors' potential performance.
It's to do with how fast or how much the processor can communicate to/with the rest of the system (ie motherboard, RAM etc).
AMD built the phenom... and it was flawed. they're only getting to their original goal now with the release of the SB750 on the newest boards. If you think nehalem has more problems than the phenom... you're in for a surprise.