Socket chaos sorted out: LGA 1156 is the home of the Core i5

Just socket 1156 - this is the preliminary result of the confusion about Intel's coming middle-class platform.

Recently there had been a lot of confusion about the socket of Intel's forthcoming middle-class processors Lynnfield and Clarksdale (expected name "core i5). While the initial rumors about 770 pins vanished quite fast, numbers between 1066 and far more than 1200 pins were going around for some time. After recent introductions of the first motherboards things became even more complicate: Several board producers talked about a socket 1155, 1156, 1160 or even 1165 and gave different information which of those sockets would be compatible to the CPUS with integrated graphics unit (Clarkdale) and which wouldn't. The result had been confusion and heated discussions in forums all over the world that often resulted in accusations against Intel - the company was said to rip-off the customers by making it impossible to upgrade the system or change the motherboard.

While Intel didn't give detailed information up to now, we were able to clarify how many pins the new socket will really have by talking to many motherboard and CPU cooler producers. According to the data we collected, there will be only one version of the socket that has 1156 pins and will be able to carry Lynnfield (45 nanometers) and Clarkdale (32 nanometers, Westmere family) processors. Whether the CPU has an integrated graphics unit or not, doesn't matter. The socket versions with 1155 and 1160 pins are from earlier stages of development, but mechanically they are identical anyway.

This mainstream platform will be extended with the socket 1366 which is intended for the server and workstation market (Xenon 5500 series) and would be too expensive for the lower market areas due to the combination of Triple Channel and QPI.

author : Torsten Vogel