Over the years, microprocessors have been installed onto common motherboards in basically two ways. Sockets and slots. Even if they’ve been soldered onto the board, it was still soldered onto a socket or slot.
Intel has recently made a lot of changes to its socket design for its processors to fit in. While AMD still uses the Zero Insertion Force Pin Grid Array style of socket for its processors to sit in, Intel has made some changes.
Normally in a PGA (Pin Grid Array), the bottom of the processor has pins that stick out (male connection) that fit in the holes in the socket (female connection). The grid and the processor are arranged in such a way that the processor can only fit one specific way, so you can’t install it backwards or anything.
This actually caused problems because sometimes the pins would bent or even break and then you couldn’t get it on anyways. The slot method was more preferred because of this. However slots have their own issues, or they would have replaced sockets altogether.
Well, Intel decided to get rid of the pins underneath the processor and have contacts instead. You can see these contacts with Core 1xx series. These processors must fit on a socket designed for them. The Land Grid Array socket style.
Intel has made installation of its processors fairly more simple since the PGA style of the clamp down heat sink and fan. Which required the user to use his own tool, a screwdriver to pull the latch down so that the heat sink and fan component were securely fastened to the motherboard.
I must give Intel credit. Any company to improve the design of their hardware, making it easier, or cheaper, or more convenient gets points from me.
So the LGA style socket is pretty much as easy as it comes to install. Simply open up the lid on the socket on the motherboard and slide the processor inside and close the lid and push the ZIF latch down. That easy.
They make the stock heat sink and fan easy as well. Decide how you’re going to plug it into the power connection on the motherboard and line up the four screws to the mounting bracket on the motherboard and simply twist them to secure them.
If you’ve ever installed other style socket processors you’ll know what a pain they can be sometimes.
PGA for example with the screwdriver latch. Though is not such a big deal, I must admit, the LGA sockets are much easier by comparison.
Here’s a video example:
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