WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.360 If you're new to building computers, one of the first little pieces of trivia you'll 00:00:03.360 --> 00:00:09.600 probably come across is that AMD CPUs use pins on the bottom, while Intel ones use little 00:00:09.600 --> 00:00:13.400 contact pads with the pins in the motherboard socket instead. 00:00:13.400 --> 00:00:18.280 But why were these choices made? Do the engineers at AMD just think that pins are prettier? 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:24.000 Well, it turns out that the use of pins versus pads is a very deliberate design choice. 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:27.800 You see, Intel's approach of having pins on the motherboard instead of the chip, called 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:33.800 a land grid array, or LGA, typically makes it easier to fit more contacts into a smaller 00:00:33.800 --> 00:00:41.080 space on the CPU. Modern CPUs need a lot of contacts for their high-speed features and to promote stable power 00:00:41.080 --> 00:00:48.560 delivery by spreading out the current. The other thought is that because tiny pins are very fragile, you know, because they're 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:54.480 super thin, well, it would be better to place those on the motherboard rather than the CPU. 00:00:54.480 --> 00:01:00.920 Because it's not uncommon to see a $400 CPU installed on a $150 motherboard. 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:05.280 So if one of those things was going to break, you'd rather it be the cheaper one, right? 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:08.360 Then you can reuse that CPU on a new motherboard. 00:01:08.360 --> 00:01:12.720 Now of course, you can still mess up an LGA processor by touching the gold contacts on 00:01:12.720 --> 00:01:21.200 the bottom with your oily little fingers. But overall, they are harder to damage than pin grid array or PGA chips, which are designed 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:29.120 to help improve your golf game. No, sorry, just kidding. PGA chips, the ones favored by AMD, are the ones with pins on their undersides, and compatible 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:33.480 motherboards for those have corresponding holes on their sockets. 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:38.240 Now immediately, you can probably figure out that this makes PGA chips a little bit easier 00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:44.040 to damage. However, there are some upsides to using this design over a land grid array. 00:01:44.040 --> 00:01:48.840 For one, the pins on PGA chips are a little tougher than the motherboard pins that you'd 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:54.000 see in an LGA socket, meaning that they are easier to repair in the event that they do 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:58.360 get bent, which I'm sure you can sympathize with if you have ever had the misfortune of 00:01:58.360 --> 00:02:03.600 having to re-bend even just one damaged pin on an LGA motherboard. 00:02:03.600 --> 00:02:07.800 The superior durability of PGA pins means that they can typically handle a little more 00:02:07.800 --> 00:02:12.920 current than LGA packages too, which can be important depending on how the chip itself 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:18.440 is designed. And for another advantage that you can more readily experience firsthand when building 00:02:18.440 --> 00:02:23.480 or upgrading your own PC, PGA chips tend to be a bit easier to install, since there 00:02:23.480 --> 00:02:28.120 are no super-delicate motherboard pins to worry about, though of course, you do have 00:02:28.120 --> 00:02:31.840 to make sure that you hit every hole in the socket properly. 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:38.200 These advantages have led AMD to keep using PGA for its consumer-level chips, even long 00:02:38.200 --> 00:02:43.520 after Intel abandoned pins on their desktop chips way back in 2004. 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:48.640 And even though current third-gen Ryzen processors actually have more contacts on the bottom 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:54.400 than their Intel rivals, AMD still found a way to fit all those pins onto one package, 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:58.000 partly because the processors themselves are physically larger. 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:02.920 Now as you might have figured out, LGA does allow you to cram more contacts per unit of 00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:07.280 area, so there actually are AMD chips that do use it. 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:12.520 Their Threadripper lineup for high-end desktop PCs and their Epic lineup for servers are 00:03:12.520 --> 00:03:17.920 both based on land grid array designs with over 4,000 pins. 00:03:17.920 --> 00:03:22.240 So if you're lucky enough to be using one of those monsters, definitely don't bend 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:29.120 any of those delicate motherboard contacts. As far as what all of this means for you, the consumer, though, well, nothing, because 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:33.760 you shouldn't be choosing a CPU based on whether it's PGA or LGA. 00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:38.820 It doesn't really affect performance in the way that the architectural design or the clock 00:03:38.820 --> 00:03:45.280 speeds or the core counts of the chips do. And the reason that Intel and AMD went their separate ways is just because they valued 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:50.400 different aspects of these designs, since each one does have their pros and cons. 00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:54.520 It's just important to be aware of the pitfalls whenever you're installing either of them 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:59.960 so you don't mess up the bottom of your chip unless you want a very expensive coaster for 00:03:59.960 --> 00:04:04.840 your, well, your shot glass, it wouldn't be a very big coaster. 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:09.360 So down below is, what else are we going to have below? 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:13.400 Your comments, which we will read and see if you have video ideas for us. 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:17.480 And then we will make those videos. That's how this symbiotic relationship works. 00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:20.160 You want videos, we make videos. Everybody wins.