J
ustimagineif youcouldpickupanyoneofthe
motherboardsinthismonth’sZ490Labstest
(seep44),sticka Ryzenchipinit andknowit
wouldnotonlyfit,butalsoworkfine.Infact,imagineyou’re
notjustlimitedtoIntelandAMDCPUs,butyoucouldputa
CPUfromallsortsofotherchipmanufacturersinyour
brandnewmotherboard.Notonlythat,butthere’sa choice
ofchipsetsalldesignedtoworkwithalltheseCPUsaswell.
We’resousedtoexclusivesocketandchipsetdesigns
nowthattheideaseemslikecommercialsuicide,butthis
wasthesituationintheSocket7 eraofthe1990s.This
periodisa strangelittleoasisinthetimebetweentimes,
whereCPUandchipsetmanufacturersjustassumedtheir
partsneededtobecompatiblewitheachother.
Untilthistime,Intelhadcompletelygovernedthedesign
ofx86CPUs,bringingusthe8088,8086,286, 386 and
486 (andothers)invariousguises,anddraftedinthird
RETRO TECH / ANALYSIS
Socket
Ben Hardwidge recalls the strange pocket of time in the 1990s when
one motherboard could support CPUs from multiple manufacturers
Socket 7 was found
on both AT and ATX
motherboards,
with chipsets
from multiple
chip makers.
Photo credit:
Konstantin Lanzetparties such as AMD and Cyrix to make clone chips to fill out
the supply and meet demand. That all changed when Intel
introduced the first Pentium-branded CPUs.
From this point, third-party companies weren’t
allowed to reproduce Intel’s flagship desktop CPU
microarchitecture, or use the Pentium brand. Instead, the
old clone chip suppliers, which still had an x86 licence from
the cloning days, had to design their own CPUs.
The first Pentium CPUs were launched on the 5V Socket- In this era, Cyrix and AMD instead focused on launching
‘5x86’ CPUs designed as upgrades for existing Socket
3 486 motherboards, as did Intel’s Pentium Overdrive
CPUs. However, it was the later 3.3V Socket 5 and Socket 7
platforms that saw Intel, Cyrix and AMD targeting the same
CPU socket.
The only difference between Socket 5 and 7 was that
the latter upped the total pin count from 320 to 321, and