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Sandy Bridge-E CPUs Too Hot For Intel?
MrSeb writes "Intel's next consumer CPUs — the Sandy Bridge-E — will ship without a heatsink and fan. These new chips, which will feature up to 15MB of L3 cache and integrated four-channel DDR3 and 32x PCI 3.0 controllers will run very hot — potentially up to 180W TDP. Is Intel unable to cool these extreme chips, or is there another reason for the shift? Curiously, Intel will still offer 'sold separately' own-brand cooling solutions for the new chips — so is this merely Intel trying to cut costs for enthusiasts who don't need a stock cooler — or is this the beginnings of Intel branching out into the cooling business?"
It is so they can blame customers if the chip dies of overheating.
If they offer OEM solutions, and the chip overheats, they need to replace it under warranty, guess these chips may have a high chance of dying due to heat
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Curiously, Intel will still offer 'sold separately' own-brand cooling solutions for the new chips â" so is this merely Intel trying to cut costs for enthusiasts who don't need a stock cooler â" or is this the beginnings of Intel branching out into the cooling business?
Starting with the words, own-brand, this sentence makes absolutely no sense. Would you care to explain or re-write it? Thanks.
It is just so they can sell you the cooling update software patch.
Time to offend someone
this is the beginnings of Intel branching out into the HEATING business
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is just Intel trying to increase their profit margins even more.
Most custom builders/modders don't even contemplate using the Intel stock cooler so it just sits there doing nothing.
If most, if not all, of the intended market will use an aftermarket air cooler/watercooling loop is there really any reason to include the stock heatsink/fan?
The 'Extreme' chips are very high end and generally not intended for Joe Public to just pick up - more of an enthusiast chip, Intel is just cashing in on this by not shipping with the stock cooling but keeping the price the same. It's also been said on the grapevine that Intel intend on releasing some of their own cooling solutions in the not so distant future.
It is possible that this is a cost cutting measure. I think that a lot of people who buy standalone CPUs use third party cooling solutions. It would save Intel a lot of money in materials and packaging if they don't ship the heatsinks and fans that people just throw away anyways.
Or maybe the chip heats up so badly, that it requires water cooling, which sold with the chip would skyrocket the price? :P
Intel should get into the restaurant business - they do high end computng and cook food at the same time.
Stock coolers are a waste -- there are much nicer (quieter) alternatives available, and at minimal expense. I never use the stock coolers. It's long seemed a bit silly to me that you couldn't buy the CPU without getting the cooler along with it, so I'm pleased that they're leaving the choice to those building the systems.
So it seams Intel will make sure they retain top benchmark spots even when Bulldozer hits. Meanwhile AMD is stressing performance per watt and that might be their weak spot, they need similar E-extreme performance model badly, otherwise Intel will grab all performance premiums again and outchart them in the benchmarks.
This seems reasonable enough to me...
Particularly for high end or "extreme" CPUs, homebuilders virtually never stick with the stock cooler anyway. If they buy the retail box at all, rather than the OEM one, the cooler just goes in the trash/on ebay/cooling something else. Big OEM builders, on the other hand, frequently want a custom cooler that integrates with their toolless or minimal-tool easy maintenance cases, to cut repair costs. For everybody else, Intel is still offering a badged "official" cooler.
This really just seems like a sensible recognition that there really isn't much point investing in chasing the high-end cooler market(which isn't an enormous R&D burden or anything; by Intel standards; but churns pretty fast and is at least partially driven by aesthetics, which aren't Intel's strong suit.) and there also isn't much point in shoving a chunk of finned aluminum in every box if it is just going to get tossed out(also, with the increasingly large number of enthusiast CPUs that are probably being purchased online, or from locked cases at retail, making the packaging a lot smaller will make everybody happier. CPUs are tiny, CPU+Cooler+retaining plastic tray is a decent size box.
The only place where the Intel stock cooler ever made much sense was for lower-end homebuilders or OEMs too cheap to do their own case designs. Those segments can still buy the Intel-blessed coolers if they want, and everybody else can go with what they were already using anyway.
"It's what our customers asked for"
This is what an oem or manufacturer says when it's to their benefit and almost nobody else's. Who can prove them wrong? All they need is one or two feedbacks suggesting it and technically, they're not lying. Most people don't want to have to engineer their own cooling solution and wonder if it will be adequate or overkill.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Why do you have to high end to get more 16 pcie 3.0 lanes? With all the talk about useing the gpu as a CPU some day it may be better to get a low to mid range cpu and get a good GPU or 2. Also the four PCIe 2.0 lanes linking the cpu to the chip set will get used up fast by USB 3.0, SATA ports and thunderbolt.
You may be able to put thunderbolt on a switch linked to the x16 pci-e lanes but then to get full speed on the video card you need a pci-e 3.0 card or the switch to out put x16 pcie 2.0.
According to this article they are looking to include a water cooled solution instead.
I'd expect the CPU would start throttling and then shutdown if it reached the edge of its acceptable operating range. My 2600K runs 'hot' with the stock cooler (not overclocked but running boinc clients). It seems to hover between 64 and 70c but I think it would start throttling at 78 and shutdown completely if it got to 90-something.
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I support the move, I don't use Intel stock coolers anyway, too noisy and not that efficient at dissipating heat. Since I assemble my PCs to last for years to come, I go for a silent and efficient cooler. So I bought an i5-660 (no need for video card, one less source of noise), and the Intel stock cooler was a real annoying buzz, going high-pitch when the load increased. Bought the Scythe Shuriken 3-Heatpipe Low Profile, and it is just great, quite silent, and efficient, only a noticeable non-annoying low breeze-like sound when the CPU load maxes.
Intel is moving into cooling business, I thought we knew this already? Go check their site.
I large percentage of Intel processor buyers throw the stock heatsink away. We all know this. It is wasteful to include a heatsink when you know a large number of them are simply going to be discarded.
It is good for the consumer because they can reduce the price of the CPU by a few dollars by leaving the heatsink out. The consumer can either purchase the stock cooler separately for those few dollars, or as many consumers do, purchase the latest whiz-bang cooling solution from a third party.
Someone probably patented the fan or motor or some bullshit know IP these day :P
Is Intel unable to cool these extreme chips?
Er... let me think...
Curiously, Intel will still offer 'sold separately' own-brand cooling solutions for the new chips
So, I'm guessing "yes".
Seriously. Maybe, just maybe they did some checking and found that a large proportion of their bundled coolers were ending up in the spare parts bin. Its not exactly surprising that the same people who buy the "extreme" chips would also go in for high bling-to-noise ratio heatsinks and water cooling systems. Not everything is a money-grabbing conspiracy.
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The sandy bridge "Extreme" is aimed at the ultra high end enthusiast market. If you are building one of these rigs you are not going to use the stock cooler. I think this is a good move, it will keep Intel's useless stock coolers from sitting in my closet for a couple of years.
The problem is that many motherboards are not designed to take anything BUT the stock cooler. In too many motherboards other components end up being mounted too close to the CPU socket to allow installing an over sized cooler. Sometimes it's one of the heat sinked 'bridge' chips, power supply parts, or even memory sockets. It sucks if an otherwise suitable motherboard won't allow installing a suitable CPU cooler (though in some cases if the cooler were made so the main cooling fins were just a bit higher up to clear the motherboard things would be OK).
Businesses still buy Intel. Including a heatsink good enough will make the difference even bigger and at a certain point, businesses won't put up with it.
The alternative is that businesses getting a perk on the deal is cutting seriously into Intels profit margin.
I'm not that worried about the cooling (well, still a bit!), but, 180W? Wow, I really hope they can come up with a CPU that is also powerful, but consumes a lot less than that!
It has been my experience that if there is a "to make more money" option, that is the correct options to choose.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
I've been building systems for a few years, and I much prefer the back pane design in the 2nd market coolers to the push-pin of the stock HSF unit. I find it easier to install firmly, and much easier to deal with if I want to upgrade the CPU in an existing unit.
Duke out
This isn't because "Intel can't cool them." Please, there are hotter chips out there. Have a look at the heat sinks on an IBM POWER chip sometime. For that matter just look at video cards. The nVidia GTX 580 is spec'd at 244 watts TDP.
Also it is easy to find current socket 1155/1156/1136 coolers that can handle more than that. Arctic Cooling, my preferred brand of aftermarket coolers, makes one rated to 300 watts. They've made ones rated to 200 watts for years now.
The reason Intel is doing this is because enthusiasts like to provide their own cooling solutions. They want to buy high end air coolers, or even do water cooling. They don't care to use stock cooling. That being the case, it is not useful to include a stock cooler since they'll just discard it. Save money and don't bother.
For their mainstream chips, the 1155 socket processors, they do include a cooler because some people don't care and just want it to work. So Intel includes a cheap cooler. It gets the job done, but is not particularly quiet (since it contains a minimal amount of aluminium and makes up the cooling with more fan speed) and it provides what is necessary for stock cooling, not for overclocking.
So makes a lot of sense to me. You are spending a bunch of money to get these new chips. They require a more expensive motherboard, they themselves cost more, and so on. If you are willing to drop that kind of cash, you probably want your own cooler and will buy it. Why should Intel waste money including one?
Intel chips overheat? I don't think so
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSGcnRanYMM
So many of these comments are outright lies. Intel sells OEM chips without a heatsink and retail kits with a pretty decent stock heatsink. Here is a stock intel heatsink for a P3 cpu.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Intel-1U-Socket-370-P3-Heatsink-Fan-Sanyo-Denki-/310132647048
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I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There's no need to run to conspiracy theories when standard business practices explain the observed behavior: Intel is looking to increase its profits. Instead of selling you two things together for one price, they can sell them separately for slightly more, increasing profit rate.
If, at the same time, they've realized that they are losing the CPU cooler business at the high-end, and that most of the manufacturing cost that goes into a heat sink is not being used by the end consumer, they save money by not including a cooler in the retail package, and discounting the wholesale price slightly. That particular consumer market segment sees no difference since they don't use the stock cooler, and Intel saves money, again increasing profit rate.
Intel makes money hand-over-fist on CPUs. I have not heard a good argument that they should enter the cooler market.
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Everything you list there is a mid-range part. That's fine, but that isn't what we are talking about here. The E series chips are Intel's high end enthusiast chips. They require different, more expensive, motherboards and support things that most consumers don't care about. Their consumer Sandy Bridge chips are already out, have been out for quite some time, and come with stock coolers.
That you tend to buy mid to lower-mid solutions and don't upgrade all that often says that price is important to you. That's perfectly ok, and indeed puts you in the majority. However that is not the market for the E series. They are for people who want high end stuff and those people like to buy their own coolers.
The reason is Intel coolers are the minimum it takes to get the job done. They use less material and higher fan speeds to achieve the cooling needed than aftermarket coolers (because more aluminium costs more money) and they provide the level of cooling specified in the TDP, no more, leaving little room for overclocking.
For budget users, that is fine. For the kind of people who drop the cash on the E series, it is not.
Intel just found a way to increase profits. It's along the same lines as their offering software CPU upgrades.
In the early 90s, all CPUs were sold without coolers. They could get pretty hot, but that was considered normal. This was followed by a period in which you could buy CPU coolers separately, which made sense, because in those days overheating CPUs would crash and burn instead of shutting themselves down to avoid damage. Those early coolers were small and simple, but as the megahertz race between Intel and AMD began heating things up (in this case literally), the coolers got bigger and more expensive. This created a sizable market of which Intel and AMD decided they wanted a share, so they introduced slightly more expensive "boxed" versions of their products that included their own coolers. Now that these have been standard for years, I guess Intel is trying to get rid of them again in order to cut costs. If AMD follows suit, then I expect history will repeat itself: the 3rd party cooler market will expand, and some years later Intel and AMD will introduce "new" boxed versions of their products.
Usually only computer enthusiasts buy high end Intel CPUs, many of them buy these CPUs for overclocking and setting performance records.
These people have never installed stock Intel coolers, so this decision made by Intel seems like a no-brainer to me. Besides with 180W TDP many will install water cooling kits which allow noise free operation and increased overclockability.
If I'm building a computer that powerful I never use the stock cooler. The first thing I usually do with a CPU is remove the factory heatsink and throw it at the nearest person.
Liquid cooling is so simple and ubiquitous these days there's very little reason not to use it when you have something this powerful to cool.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
If you are going to bitch about money, the Sandy Bridge E series is NOT for you. They are Intel's "enthusiast" chips which means "costs a lot more". The chips themselves will be expensive, probably $300 minimum and up to $1000 for the top of the line. They also need more expensive motherboards, and those boards demand more expensive things like more RAM sticks with they use more channels.
For people who wish to spend less, Intel already released the products: The non-E series SB chips. They came out earlier this year and are available in a massive range. The top of it is the Core i7 2600k for $320, the bottom is the Pentium G620 for $64. All of them have a stock Intel cooler (if you buy the retail boxed model).
So you've got nothing to bitch about. If your budget is tight enough that $50 matters, then you want a non-E series chip. They go plenty high end. The 2600 is a quad core, hyperthreaded chip that can destroy any game out there.
If you want an E series, you are going to have to scale your budget up by a hell of a lot more than $50 over what you'd pay for a 2600 and a 1155 board.
.. the intel HSF's have always sucked anyway. Anyone who was building their own PC should know better than to use it, especially if they're buying those "extreme" chips as you called them.
I don't see the problem.
For the first time in as long as long as anyone at ExtremeTech can remember, Intel’s next consumer CPUs — the Sandy Bridge-E range — will ship without a heatsink and fan.
^$@& kids.... 386s shipped (and ran) bare. Most 486s shipped with either nothing or a really small heatsinks and fans were optional for all. It was big news when Pentiums shipped with heatsinks AND fans because OMG the things are so hot and powerful!
As with the previous article on selling CPU's with different speed unlocks to them, this is just some one new at Intel marketing trying to monetize all the little tidbits.
Nothing to see here but capitalism.
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Intel is filing a lawsuit against the laws Thermodynamics. It is their hope Thermodynamics will settle out of court on the condition that they no longer impose their law upon Intel chips.
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If you're buying an i3 or i5 then you should probably not waste your money on a fancy heatsink. I'm using the intel provided heatsink right now, for the first time in a decade. And it is way better than the cheap $12-20 heatsinks I've picked up for cheap builds in the past.
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Desperate attempt at controversy. Some news just isn't worth discussing.
Maybe they think that most buyers already have compatible cooler, because "the new 2011-pin CPU socket is backwards compatible with LGA 1366 cooling solutions".
This just allows them to make more profit when they sell you the chip.
The price you pay for a CPU isn't going down, its going up, and you're just being too ignorant to notice.
You'll still pay the same price for a the CPU as you did when it came with a fan, except now you'll also have to buy the fan seperately.
This is exactly like the whole 'new CPUs must use this slotted connection due to some mystical magical BS we're making up about interference that is clearly a lie for multiple reasons'.
Intel is once again bending you over and not using lube, but you're too busy looking for a technical reason that you're missing the obvious and real reason. Money. This isn't the first or even second time they've done something like this.
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Not true, the intel 486 overdrive and some other overdrive CPUs have an integrated heatsink.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/486_OverDrive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Pentium_II_Overdrive
I agree with your points though.
I can't tell you how many old stock CPU coolers are sitting in my drawers (they make lousy paper-weights). The first thing I do when I build a system is get a quieter, more efficient CPU cooler.
The stock coolers are too noisy and inefficient and it's impossible to get an OEM CPU any more.
Well their stock fans are worthless anyhow.. I have a I7 950 at 3.2ghz and when I use it at full tilt (100% on all cores) for raytracing, I get 200+ degrees, even with a clean stock Intel heatsink and fan. My case has many fans and its well below Intel's recommended ambient case temp of 36C, so I just don't think thees stock fans can do their job.
Do they pay you shills well?
First and foremost : the distributor/consumer now has to install the cooling device, which shifts the problem to "Did you install the cooler correctly? Because we don't cover improper assembly".
I'm sorry but what kind of logic is that in a world where you need to ship a heatsink separately anyway due to how the CPU and heatsink bolt onto the motherboard? Intel ship CPUs, that's it. You can order an Intel motherboard as well, but unless you get an Intel Atom or similar soldered on the motherboard style chip someone somewhere always needs to assemble the damn thing. That doesn't change if you're Joe Average armed with a heatsink retainer and a manual, or if you're Dell / HP armed with giant metal robots on a production line.
Also their coolers are almost idiot proof in installation:
Step 1: Mount CPU in socket.
Step 2: Mount cooler on socket.
Step 3: Push down little retaining tabs.
CPU paste? Preapplied. Tension issues? Pre-tensioned bolts. You could crack the edge of the CPU if you don't do it right? Well that's an argument from long before CPUs shiped with a metal plate on them. Turned on PC without HSF attached? Processor throttles down.
This isn't the 90s anymore. Breaking a CPU by installing the heatsink is hard. You're much more likely to break the motherboard. Breaking the CPU by overheating is just as hard as these have been thermally throttling to a safe state for a good 10 years now, since the early Athlons (actually P4s during the Athlon era already had that feature too). And if the chip does cook then you've identified a manufacturing flaw in the thermal management of the CPU which should be covered by warranty anyway.
Your warranty claim while an insightful thought falls flat on it's face.
That's an interesting fantasy world you live in. Say hi to the faeries and unicorns for me.
AMD has not had an advantage since they came out with the Athlon64. It was the last time they had a CPU that beat Intel in performance. Intel came out with "core 2 duo" and AMD has of yet been unable to answer. That was a long time ago.
The ONLY time they have been able to compete even in a cost/performance ratio, is at the low end. Not mid, and not high. Very few enthusiasts are interested in the low end, sub 150$ CPU.
Intel's current offerings of i5 2500k (215$) and i7 2600k (300$) beat the pants off anything AMD has to offer. If you are aware of any review and any store selling an AMD CPU that beats either of those in 50% performance benchmarks, and costs less, post it here and educate me.
For example.