does anyone know why AMD and Intel switched back to socket CPUs after Slot 1 and Slot A CPUs. i think slot CPUs are better becuase they are slightly easier to put in and, most importantly, there are no tiny delicate pins to bend and break. why did they go back to socket CPUs? Why not stick with slot CPUs which are clearly the better choice? or is there somthing i am missing to explain why sockets are better? other then the fact that they take up less room?

Never try to teach a hog to sing. It frustrates you and aggravates the hog.

Slot CPUs were more expensive to produce. The early Athlon "clasic" had the L2 cache on a separate chip next to the CPU on the slot board. But as technology progressed & the Athlon Thunderbird with it's onboard L2 was developed, the slot board setup became unnecessary.

Here's a great article about the different Slot-A Athlons:

http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/a_slota/

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

Remember transistor density and performance (not to be confused) have increased by magnitudes. So seperating components would not only be unnecessary, but bottleneck performance.

And that "less room" in terms of microns (1 inch = 25,400 microns) is significant. A P4 die was around .13 microns with over 50 million transistors. At clockrates over 3Ghz you can actually have a chip where the logic has to take a cycle or to synchronize (or catch up). There isn't enough room to fit a human hair in there and the distance between logic units is increasing (because we're shrinking the die)!

the delicate pins are just an extreme annoyance, they bend and break so easily!

Never try to teach a hog to sing. It frustrates you and aggravates the hog.

"the delicate pins are just an extreme annoyance, they bend and break so easily!"

I don't know what you're doing with them but I've NEVER had a problem with bent or broken pins. The CPU socket is called ZIF, which stands for Zero Insertion Force...the CPU should just drop right in place with little or no pressure. If you have to press on the CPU to get it to go in, either the pins are already bent or the locking lever isn't fully opened. It only takes a few seconds to eye up the pins to make sure they're all in nice uniform rows. Obviously you have to have the CPU turned the right way for it to drop in place. I've even taken CPUs that others had trashed & spent 5-10 minutes straightening bent pins & they've worked good as new. I don't recall ever breaking one.

ASUS A7N8X-X
Athlon XP 1800+
8.5 x 200MHz
1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7
Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB
WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

With all this said i read that on new 65mm porcessors the pins will not be an issue, because they will be soo short they will look like teeth instead. So if you break one of those then you must be trying to hammer that processors in the motherboard.

heh, slotted CPUs. I've got three of em, a P2-300, Celeron-433, and P3-600.

With the exception of the Celeron (which is a "naked" circuit board--has no plastic covering) those slotted chips were near impossible to break. I've thrown my P2 against a wall in a fit of "motherboard-won't-boot" rage and it still worked after. In a different motherboard, of course. lol.

i am gald to hear you have some older systems still. i dont like it when people think they need the fastest and best. i have done similar. that is what i am talking about slot CPUs are much more durable and less easy to break.

Never try to teach a hog to sing. It frustrates you and aggravates the hog.