CPU's Integrated with Motherboards

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So I have always been one of those to get computers and extend their life by upgrading them when it becomes cost effective to do so. Maxing out ram, processor, replacing hd with better one, and upgrading OS. Now I've done this 3 times with intel based laptops over the years. I have a 7th gen i5 laptop I bought for 300. I was thinking about upgrading the processor to an i7 until I noticed that it appears the processor is integrated with the motherboard. This is on a dell inspiron. I have noticed that there are no individual laptop chips on ebay either. This is disappointing and annoying. When did this become a thing?
 
Many years ago as volumes increased and costs decreased, and lower weight became more of a factor. Some desktops still have sockets but is rare on laptops, except some gaming models. It's even getting rare to have RAM sockets. There hasn't been as much of a change in CPU capability lately, a 5 yr old laptop is perfectly serviceable for anything but gaming. GPU's are where most of the capabilities are increasing rapidly.
 
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It allows them to make it thinner. I wouldn't even expect much improvement from moving to an i7, it's bound to have slow IGP so the main things would be at least 4GB memory, better 8GB and a decent SSD.
 
A few reasons:

1) Apple does it so it becomes acceptable to the rest
2) Thinner
3) Shorter electrical trace, better signal integrity, better compatibility (don't get complains because people upgrade to an incompatible stick)
4) Force people to pay more for ram and cpu now, instead of buy cheap and upgrade
5) Intel changes CPU socket and RAM speed often, so really won't help much beyond 2-3 years, which defeat the purpose of upgrade (not much changing in 2-3 years these days)

I gave up on upgrading laptop these days, other than SSD.
 
Originally Posted by NO2
Many years ago as volumes increased and costs decreased, and lower weight became more of a factor. Some desktops still have sockets but is rare on laptops, except some gaming models. It's even getting rare to have RAM sockets. There hasn't been as much of a change in CPU capability lately, a 5 yr old laptop is perfectly serviceable for anything but gaming. GPU's are where most of the capabilities are increasing rapidly.



What desktops don't have sockets? I'm not talking about little ones that use laptop processors.
 
This has been going on in the intel world for 20+ years. This is mainly for the extremely value conscious buyers. But they tend to have a high DOA rate, so it was good practice to run the MB for a while before installing it into a case to weed out defects by the assembler.
 
Way back in the day, it was common to see a 386 or 486 soldered into the motherboard for most PCs, until Intel introduced Socket 1 for the faster 486s of the 1990s.

Apple started the iCPU movement in laptops with the original Whitebook/Blackbook MacBooks after the Intel transition, and then the MacBook Pro used iCPUs. The PC makers didn't start until recently, Lenovo started using iCPUs on the ThinkPad T420s. Now, all the ThinkPad CPUs are soldered in. HP and Dell followed along. My current work computer is a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the CPU and RAM is all integrated, only things I can swap out are the SSD and WLAN/WWAN cards.. It's almost like a current MacBook Pro. My old T430s and T450 are the same deal but have removable RAM.
 
There is really no socket available for the laptop CPU anymore.

Making it thinner almost like a tablet thin will disable that options.

Plus the CPU upgrade path is almost non-existent.
In other words, the next generation CPU is not backward compatible.
Even the i5 and i7 from the same generation may not be compatible in terms of TDP, etc.

If you want good upgradeable computer, the older desktop like Dell Precision T3500 or T5500 or T7500 have a good and cheap upgrade path with the Xeon CPU.
 
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When I was in college, I didn't have enough cash to spring for the high end stuff. It just so happened that a got a celeron. Those boards support the higher end chips of that generation too. A few years later after purchase, maxed out ram, upgraded hd, and maxed out processor for relatively cheap. All of that made a world of difference and I was able to keep it for a while. That started my habit of buying upgradable laptops. Bought a first and second gen i3 laptops and did the same. Just kinda bummed, as the 7th gen i7 had the better intel grahpics built in compared to the regular intel graphics. Yes, I know that a real graphics card is better.

I could totally afford to spring for a nice laptop now but it was something kinda fun to do in my spare time.
 
The last 4 laptops I've had had soldered CPU's. Though my MacBook Pro doesn't have any upgradable parts... the ram, cpu, and NVMe are soldered to the board.
 
Originally Posted by Skippy722
The last 4 laptops I've had had soldered CPU's. Though my MacBook Pro doesn't have any upgradable parts... the ram, cpu, and NVMe are soldered to the board.

Which sucks, I prefer Apple over PCs. However, Lenovo is now going that route with the new ThinkPad T490/X390, it started with the 5th gen X1 Carbon/Yoga. Only thing you can service is the M.2 SSD it looks like, the wireless might be using Intel's CVNi interconnect that integrates the wireless PHY and logic into the core logic/platform controller hub.

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/b4wbrv/t490s_internal_layout_shows_obvious_regression/
http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-5th-generation2017-review/
 
Originally Posted by nthach
Originally Posted by Skippy722
The last 4 laptops I've had had soldered CPU's. Though my MacBook Pro doesn't have any upgradable parts... the ram, cpu, and NVMe are soldered to the board.

Which sucks, I prefer Apple over PCs. However, Lenovo is now going that route with the new ThinkPad T490/X390, it started with the 5th gen X1 Carbon/Yoga. Only thing you can service is the M.2 SSD it looks like, the wireless might be using Intel's CVNi interconnect that integrates the wireless PHY and logic into the core logic/platform controller hub.

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/b4wbrv/t490s_internal_layout_shows_obvious_regression/
http://www.notebookreview.com/notebookreview/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-5th-generation2017-review/


Yep... kinda wish I would have got one with a bigger drive than the 128Gb, but I don't really keep anything on it to begin with anyway, and I wasn't paying $200 more for a 256Gb.

My 17" Asus G750 was nice, it had dual hard drive bays, easy to get to ram slots, and a nice beefy cooling system.
 
Haswell (i3/i5/i7-4xxxM/MQ) was the last generation of laptop chips that were commonly socketed, and even then, some consumer-focused brands were using the soldered parts to reduce cost and form factor.

Soldering SSDs (or batteries) is pure evil though -- as those parts often legitimately need to be replaced, and in business uses, the entire machine would have to be scrapped instead of recycled minus the SSD.
 
Thank god USB-C / USB 3.0 is arriving. Or else we really can't take advantage of the ever dropping SSD price and get suckered into paying more ahead of time for a premium.

With all the shenanigan on soldering, why don't we just use a tablet with Bluetooth keyboard / mouse instead of a laptop?
 
Originally Posted by PandaBear
Thank god USB-C / USB 3.0 is arriving. Or else we really can't take advantage of the ever dropping SSD price and get suckered into paying more ahead of time for a premium.

With all the shenanigan on soldering, why don't we just use a tablet with Bluetooth keyboard / mouse instead of a laptop?


I bought some USB 3.0 flash drives... last time I transferred a 200+mb file it took a noticeable amount of time. These 3.0 drives just fly!

That's basically what the MacBook pros kind of are. Push them too hard and they'll overheat, I use mine for web browsing/YouTube and GarageBand. No way would I be doing any rendering on it.
 
Originally Posted by nthach

Apple started the iCPU movement in laptops with the original Whitebook/Blackbook MacBooks after the Intel transition, and then the MacBook Pro used iCPUs. The PC makers didn't start until recently, Lenovo started using iCPUs on the ThinkPad T420s. Now, all the ThinkPad CPUs are soldered in. HP and Dell followed along. My current work computer is a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the CPU and RAM is all integrated, only things I can swap out are the SSD and WLAN/WWAN cards.. It's almost like a current MacBook Pro. My old T430s and T450 are the same deal but have removable RAM.


Apple started doing it several years before the Intel transition. The last Mac laptop with anything resembling a "socketed" CPU was the PowerBook G3 Pismo, which had the CPU on a small daughtercard. The first G4 PowerBooks were considerably thinner and used a soldered CPU, something that stayed through the rest of the PPC years and didn't change with the Intel transition. The iBook(consumer series) laptops always had soldered CPUs, going back to the original "Clamshell" models.

I know several folks who have experimented with fitting G4s to computers like iBooks and iMac G3s. I'm waiting on a friend of mine to do just exactly that on a Clamshell logic board. That same friend has built a couple of G4 cards for Pismo G3s, which was actually an upgrade that was offered by some aftermarket makers back when the computers were current. I have a Lombard G3 with a G4 upgrade, although it doesn't help the computer a ton as that is a system that is handicapped in several other areas.

Apple HAS been hit or miss on sockets in other models. A lot of PowerPC iMacs after the first general tray loaders were soldered, while the earlier Intels went back to sockets. I have a first generation Intel Mini that I've actually upgraded the CPU in twice-I took it from a CoreDuo to a Core2Duo of the same clock speed, and then more recently(when they got comically cheap) put the fastest Core2Duo that would fit the socket in it. Similarly, I've gone through a couple of different CPUs in both my Mac Pro 1,1 and Mac Pro 5,1-the former is now on dual 3.0ghz quads, while the latter has dual 3.46ghz hexes. These CPUs are the fastest that will fit their respective sockets. I don't THINK that the current "trashcan" Mac Pro has sockets, but then I've not dug THAT deep into one nor have I really researched it.
 
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