AMD Sockets

[SupremeGOAT]

The first pc i ever had for myself had an intel pentium 4(when they were getting old) my uncle helped me assemble it at that time, I was young. I noticed that there was some sort of holding mechanism to secure the CPU in place and future generations of intel motherboards had this mechanism. AMD motherboards however (FM2 AM4) have no such holding features just a latch. What exactly is keeping the CPU in place?

[Mira Yurizaki]

The latch moves a set of electrical contacts towards or away from another set of electrical contacts. When you open the latch, it moves these contacts away, providing no resistance in the holes themselves. But when you move the latch down, it presses the contacts against the pins.

 

EDIT: I also have some feeling it may not do this but physically move the plastic part of the socket back and forth. But I dunno, it's been forever since I had an AMD system or an older Intel one.

Edited May 18, 2018 by M.Yurizaki

[chckovsky]

Basically AMD also has a mechanism, but it simply locks the pins of the CPU into the holes in the socket on the motherboard.

[mariushm]

The Intel processors use LGA where the cpu has only pads of copper on the bottom and the socket has tiny contacts with some "spring"-iness in them, the contacts are designed to flex a bit when you put the cpu in socket. There has to be a lid, some frame on top of the Intel processors, to make sure the cpu is aligned nicely with the contacts and you don't put too much pressure on one corner of the cpu by accident.

 

AMD uses PGA for their desktop processors (well mostly, as for example Threadripper is classified as high end desktop and it's LGA) so the processors self align in the socket due to them using pins which go inside holes in the socket. There's only one level which when pressed down makes a bit of sideways pressure in the socket to make sure the pins on the cpu make good contact with each contact in the socket.

So you don't need fancy lids and stuff like Intel does to keep the cpu in socket.