Socket 7 is a physical and electrical specification for the x86 processor socket matching the pins on Pentium microprocessors manufactured by Intel, and compatibles made by Cyrix, AMD and others. Any CPU chip conforming to this specification can be plugged into any conforming motherboard. It supersedes the Socket 5 . Differences between the two are an extra pin on the Socket 7 and that the Socket 7 is designed to provide dual split rail voltage while the Socket 5 can only have a single voltage. However, not all motherboard manufacturers supported the dual voltage on their boards initially. Only when CPUs that required the lower voltage appeared on the market, boards supporting them were available as well. Any Socket 5 CPU can be placed in a Socket 7 board.

Supported processors include: 2.5V - 3.5V Pentiums 75-233 MHz, AMD K5 through K6, Cyrix 6x86 (and MX) P120 - P233.

Socket 7 uses a SPGA socket, either a 296 pin LIF arranged at 37x37 (which is very rare), or the much more common 321 pin ZIF arranged at 19x19.

An extension of Socket 7, Super Socket 7 was designed to allow the AMD K6-2 and AMD K6-III chips to operate at a higher clock rate and use AGP. The two standards are rather compatible, but the extra features are only available if both motherboard and CPU are Super Socket 7.

See also: List of Intel CPU slots and sockets, List of AMD CPU slots and sockets

References