CPUs Unmasked

[Chook]

I thought I'd start a thread to showcase cpus that are usually hidden inside plastic cases or heatsink assemblies.

First one is an Itanium 800 2M QBE8 ES (courtesy of Neon_WA). The large die is the cpu, the dual die is the cache. I'd be interested to see a 4M cache Itanium.

[Chook]

Pentium II Xeon 400.

The first photo is a 400/100/512 with a single 512k cache module, which is the same as the one found on the Pentium II Overdrive.

The second photo is a 400/100/1M with two 512k cache modules.

[Neon_WA]

nice one chook
just hope the IT police don't consider it porn

[tsuimusya]

[Chook]

That's the one. A "quad core" cache chip!

Next is the Pentium II Xeon 450.

These processors use a more compact package for the main core but use the same cache chips as the 400mhz. There were three cache options - 512k (one cache chip), 1M (two cache chips) and 2M (four cache chips). The 2M version has two chips on the front of the pcb and two on the rear. There is an extra metal bracket over the rear two chips that acts as a heatsink. That is why the 2M version is noticably heavier.

First photo - 450/100/512
Second photo 450/100/1M
Third photo 450/100/2M (back view - front view is the same as the 1M)

[frag_]

Cool, thanks for sharing it!

[Chook]

The next lot of chips is the P3 Xeons.

There are four new types of PCBs for the P3 Xeons.

The Xeon 500/512 and Xeon 500/1M look the same as the Xeon 450/512 and Xeon 450/1M respectively.

The Xeon 500/2M uses 2 1M cache chips using a similar package to the main core.
The Xeon 550/512 and 550/1M both use a PCB with a single cache chip. Not sure how that works - they look the same so the 512k is either a defective 1M chip or a 1M chip with half of it disabled.

The remainder of the slot two Xeon range use two PCB layouts. These chips have the cache on the same die as the CPU. The 256k versions have the small die which looks the same as the die from earlier Xeons. The 1M and 2M versions use a large die with a heatspreader.

[aberco]

[Neon_WA]

here is a bare P2 Xeon Thermal sample made week 18 1997

[aberco]

So here is the Itanium 4M
80541KZ8004M SL4LQ

[Vegeta]

Cool!

[aberco]

The CPU die is so large, and the L3 MCM package is one of the largest BGA chip I've ever seen, cool stuff!

[CPUShack]

truly massive!

[fritsp2007]

Cool...

[Tegranphos]

impressive!!!!