[geeks] Advantages of Compression Connectors?

[Ethan]

> In trying to fix the CPU board to my C200 I took the heatsink/fan 
> assembly off and the CPU pulled up with the heatsink, it was 
> connected to the board with a compression connector.  I've also seen 
> these on XIO cards.  Is there an advantage to these things?  They 
> have drawbacks such as the ability to contaminate the connectors with 
> dust or particles.  I'm assuming some kind of electrical advantage.
> daniel

Something about interference or signal issues are are incurred from
sockets or PGA things. Capacitance? Inductance?

(From a SGI rep)

Do the MIPS CPUs in origins talk to the system at a much faster rate than
say a PIII intel CPU? I've always wondered... 

Most of the HPC stuff uses it... SGI, Sun, Cray.