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What is the difference between
Do some mean that the BGA is soldered to the board and cannot be removed? BGA is soldered versions only, right?
What does "FC", "PG" and "988", "1224" mean, etc.?
De coder
Posted 2013-05-04T04:43:00.667
Reputation: 59
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The numbers are the number of pins, and kind of tells you which motherboards it will go into - the current Ivy Bridge Desktop Boards use LGA 1155 sockets - LGA means Land Grid Array - the pins are on the motherboard, not the chip.
BGA means Ball Grid Array and yes, it does mean they are soldered on through little balls on the underside of the package. If you had specialist equipment you could in theory desolder that and resolder a new one. I doubt too many people have access to a reflow oven tho
PGA means Pin Grid Array, which means the pins are on the processor, FCPGA simply means the chip is mounted upside down, and rPGA simply means the 'pitch' or distance between pins is less.
Together, these should give you a rough indication of what chip would physically fit into a socket - no chance of me putting an old c2d era LGA 775 (with 775 pins) into a modern LGA 1155. You will also need to check if the bios will work with the chip you want.
Get a chip of the same packaging type - for example, if your current chip is a FCPGA 998, get a chip that's also FCPGA 998, and a good bet might be to get a chip thats used in a different SKU of your laptop.
Upgrading laptops is a bit of a crapshoot though, and its likely to be tricky.
Journeyman Geek
Posted 2013-05-04T04:43:00.667
Reputation: 119 122
OK so processors that have rPGA988B FCPGA988 are all compatable with one another. And also IF the bios supports dual core and multithreading turbo boost THEN it will also support a quad core with multithreading turbo boost there is no diff in the amount of cores right the Bios sees it as one processor regardless right. All this depends on the OS right ? – De coder – 2013-05-04T07:41:44.440
1@Decoder: They're not "compatible with one another", they just physically fit in the same socket. And no, the BIOS doesn't see it as one processor regardless. The BIOS sees the individual cores. – David Schwartz – 2013-05-04T08:45:05.510
I know someone who uses a toaster oven for small BGA jobs. He does not recommend it. Especially a CPU, they have a lot of pins/solder points. It's really quite a delicate operation to resolder one. – Bob – 2013-05-04T08:48:48.163
A good rule of thumb is "Its not worth the effort". However if you want to take the risk you MAY be able to swap a "FCPGA988" based processor with another one IF it happens to be a model supported by the bios on the laptop (that is to say, the laptop has a version with it and its just a chip swap), You cannot swap a rPGA988B with a FCPGA988 - same number of pins, different packaging, so they are incompatible. – Journeyman Geek – 2013-05-04T09:16:44.453
On the intel site it states Sockets Supported FCPGA988 and Package Size 37.5mmx37.5mm (rPGA988B) so rPGA988B is just a pitch specification processor pin spec rite? and rPGA988B implies its FCPGA988 rite and vice versa? – De coder – 2013-05-04T09:21:02.757
From what I understand, no. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_G1 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_G2 - these are the sockets in question and no, they are absolutely not cross compatible.
– Journeyman Geek – 2013-05-04T11:31:31.460