News Intel denies BGA-only processor plan rumours

FCLGA1155 = LGA1155 and FCLGA2011 = LGA2011.

EDIT: Intel calls a BGA part BGA*, like so: http://ark.intel.com/products/37264/

EDIT2: FCLGA = Flip-Chip Land Grid Array. Flip-Chip referring to how the die is flipped with the die's contact at the bottom (unlike in the old days when the connections were on the top of the die)

 

http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced?Embedded=true

again , intel calls embedded option - embedded....

 

Optional, not main. And secondly, some BGA parts are not embeddable, like the SU9600 I linked earlier, so the point is moot anyways.

 

which brings me back to my original post which you disagreed with:

the option for BGA is allready available.

 

Not in mainstream servers. No good sysadmin that I know of wants BGA. Some niche servers like those used in control systems do, but that's a small market and has remained relatively stable for years at this point but practically all rackservers and datacenters with their own fully custom machines use non-BGA simply because its much easier to swap out a CPU compared to swapping out an entire motherboard.

EDIT: BGA has always been available, very few situations want to deal with the messiness.

 

i`ve shown that the option is available and your still arguing? why?

My point , which i have supplied intel links for , is that BGA is allready available for server xeon chips.

 

As harle has pointed out intel already do supply BGA even if its in Low quantities at the moment.

Most mainstream servers run such custom motherboards that the ability to pre supply them with cpus is mute. not talking workstation here. We are talking 16 + cpus on a mobo.

BGA will work well in the following markets.

Consumer dell style boxes
Laptops ( Apple and its Ilk )
Smartphones
tablets
Low to mid range Servers ( the ones most companys run or employ others to run, if your company has 100 employees it likely has a low server.) We are not talking national security style servers here.

So a pretty wide ranging market there. ( like 70% of the total market for cpus id guess) We poor enthusiasts are 0.8% or below lol.

The ones missing are all run on custom boards with custom software. ( Think Banking, GCHQ, CIA )

 

Already happening. Not much room to saturate anymore. Some laptop lines will remain highly modular (Latitude/Precision, Thinkpad T/W/X, EliteBook) since they are generally bought by the hundreds by large companies. RMA each is a pita when you can just swap out faulty parts immediately and RMA the parts/buy new parts in your own time/schedule.

Those are actually those most likely to want flexible CPU choice: You may be using it as a backup server, so you want a massive RAID array but not much CPU power or bandwidth, or you may be using it as a more "general purpose" multifunction box providing one off-site backup and serving webpages (yay VMs!) or you may simply have a few hundred of these cheap boxes in your GPU farm and want a fast CPU to keep up with things. Al in all, servers need flexibility, something not possible with soldered parts.

EDIT: words. All the words.

 

Nonsense about i7-3960X just go for i7-3930K.

 

Well, with BGA in the enthusiast market... you won't really have a choice...

 

Show me now were BGA is in the mainstream enthusiast market now and confirmed for the future?

This is a nothing topic brought to the forefront by AMD wanting to sound ahead of the game who reacted to a "rumour" and have been caught 'red' faced.

'Intel remains committed to the growing desktop enthusiast and channel markets,' Intel's Daniel Snyder told the site, and will continue to offer socketed parts in the LGA package for the foreseeable future for our customers and the enthusiast DIY market.'

 

Quite.

Just to add to this, there is no point whatsoever trying to assign any meaning to "the foreseeable future", it might mean 2 years it might mean 15. Conjecture will get you nowhere.

What I would say is that the chances of Intel ever ditching the discrete market completely are minimal, they'd be marginalising part of their customer base which is rarely a good business move.

 

Too late, I'd say. The A6 processors are Apple's own design. They just spent god knows how much time and money doing a whole lot of hand layout on the A6. They hold an ARM Architecture license - a whole lot of companies hold the other ARM license (and I can't recall what it's called) - essentially, a license to manufacture ARM's designs. The license Apple holds allows them to use the ARM instruction set. The actual design of the processor is up to the licensee (although I'm sure ARM offers design consultation for a price, as well.)

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if Jobs greatly resented leaving that much control in the hands of an outside vendor - Intel, in this case. I have to wonder if Apple would go sniffing around AMD should worse come to worst for the green team (not that Intel would allow it, since they hold refusal rights to AMD's x86 license.)

The other downside to both sides would be the pissing match over profits - Apple and Intel are both known to make good-to-great margins on hardware. Even as amazed as I am at some Apple hardware prices (at least, it'd be a cold day in hell before I dropped $1700 on a 13" laptop), there's a finite limit to how high you can push the price of iDevices. Especially with there being real competition from Android vendors (and hopefully Windows Phone, someday) - Apple hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire with the latest iOS devices.

Also, and I am no grammar nazi by any stretch, but in your other comment - the point is moot, not mute. The point isn't silent, it's irrelevant. Grammatically, I consider that mistake as grave a sin as 'irregardless'.