I know Threadripper 3 needs more power, but I don't see why the socket could not be backward compatible.Yep, different power pins layout.
Same socket but not compatible.
I don't understand how you would get more pins if none was free.Cause additional power is needed, so more pins are assigned to it. The existing ones are not enougo to feed these beasts.
Same socket, same pin count, different pin assignment. Therefore, no compatibility exists.
Too bad, but required for the more power hungry TR3.
One sentence.I don't understand how you would get more pins if none was free.
Redundant address/data/control/clock pins removed?One sentence.
Optimization the design of the socket.
End of the story.
I know Threadripper 3 needs more power, but I don't see why the socket could not be backward compatible.
Could it be actually backwards compatible, just not enabled?On sTRX4, lots of pins that were previously unused by the TR4 socket have been enabled. The pin count is still 4094 for the socket itself for the SP3 socket but the revised naming should be considered here. The sTRX4 SP3 socket has more pins enabled than the TR4 SP3 socket.
TR4 SP3 Socket
sTRX4 SP3 Socket
Almost all pins are the same, except that some pins and two i/o data pins with unknown features remain surplus in TR4.
Could it be actually backwards compatible, just not enabled?
Would this just be a BIOS change?processors on both sides are incompatible because AMD has prevented them from booting through ID pin recognition.
In other words, if backward compatibility and scaling are needed, AMD will just put a ticket like TR4v2 and use surplus pins to make it closer to SP3.