Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

Can anyone tell me for certain whether the CPU of the T450 (not the T450s) is socketed or soldered?

Thank you,
Eric

http://www.notebookcheck.net/fileadmin/ ... VGE/hw.jpg

Soldered unfortunately.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Soldered unfortunately.

All mobile Skylake CPUs and all CPUs of both X series and T4??s series are soldered as well - so what?

Thank you!
Eric

fb1996 wrote:

RealBlackStuff wrote:Soldered unfortunately.

All mobile Skylake CPUs and all CPUs of both X series and T4??s series are soldered as well - so what?

Wouldn't it make more sense to have ONE motherboard with UMPTEEN CPU options,
rather than UMPTEEN identical motherboards except for ONE different CPU?

fb1996 wrote: All mobile Skylake CPUs and all CPUs of both X series and T4??s series are soldered as well - so what?

While it may very well be "so what" for you, it's not so for those amongst us who have been upgrading CPUs since the dawn of ThinkPads.

So no, not everyone is happy with the given state of affairs.

I dislike not being able to upgrade all components of a laptop, or any computer in general. However, given the amount processing power current cpus have, this isn't as much of an issue.

fb1996 wrote: All mobile Skylake CPUs and all CPUs of both X series and T4??s series are soldered as well - so what?

Motherboards are known to be slightly less reliable than processors.
High end processors are usually much more expensive than the motherboard alone.

If you ever needed to replace the motherboard, you will have to pay for the processor too.

With motherboards starting to have soldered RAM/dGPU/processors, as more items are soldered on the MB, the probability of the whole MB require replacing for one single issue becomes bigger, and it would cost more.

It is an issue of 'Maintainability'.
That is the main issue with Apple's hardware.

So next thing you know, laptop with RAM/memtest errors, solution: get a new laptop.

hhhd1 wrote:

fb1996 wrote: All mobile Skylake CPUs and all CPUs of both X series and T4??s series are soldered as well - so what?

Motherboards are known to be slightly less reliable than processors.
High end processors are usually much more expensive than the motherboard alone.

If you ever needed to replace the motherboard, you will have to pay for the processor too.

With motherboards starting to have soldered RAM/dGPU/processors, as more items are soldered on the MB, the probability of the whole MB require replacing for one single issue becomes bigger, and it would cost more.

It is an issue of 'Maintainability'.
That is the main issue with Apple's hardware.

So next thing you know, laptop with RAM/memtest errors, solution: get a new laptop.

I concur. I had my share of issues with laptops and I certainly will never buy one that has soldered CPU. If one part fails I want to replace that part, not a whole laptop (because if it will have soldered CPU then MB + CPU replacement will probably cost almost as much as a new laptop)

Someone mentioned to me elsewhere that all BGA-package CPUs are soldered--that is, they have no pins.

But couldn't they engineer a socket with matching contact pads for the BGA chips? Seems like it wouldn't be as hard as designing these amazing CPUs . . .

Almace wrote:Someone mentioned to me elsewhere that all BGA-package CPUs are soldered--that is, they have no pins.

Yes, all chips packaged as BGA are soldered. BGA means "Ball Grid Array"-- "ball" refers to the small globes (balls) of solder used to connect the chip to the board.

But couldn't they engineer a socket with matching contact pads for the BGA chips? Seems like it wouldn't be as hard as designing these amazing CPUs . . .

Well, during the Core/Core2 era some BGA CPUs popped up in the market with legs attached-- this allows ULV parts like the U7600 to be installed in Thinkpad T60s. This was possible because the U7600's BGA package was exactly the same size and layout as its socketed brethren, but with pins removed--someone simply managed to solder pins to it.

But if the CPU platform doesn't have an existing socket, things get much more difficult, if not outright impossible. Intel designed the sockets alongside the processors. I haven't heard of third parties making sockets on their own.