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Intel Skylake CPUs Are Warping Under Mounting Pressure From Third-Party Coolers (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: It's been discovered that some third-party heat sinks can physically damage Intel's new Skylake CPUs, along with the pins in the accompanying motherboard socket. The problem has prompted at least one cooler maker to change the design of its Socket 1151 heat sinks and it wouldn't be surprising if others soon followed suit. The apparent issue is the substrate Intel used for its Skylake chips. A close-up shot of a Skylake CPU sitting side-by-side with a Broadwell processor (Google translation of German original) shows that the substrate is noticeably thinner on Skylake, and thus prone to bending from the force that some third-party heat sinks exert.
Intel has addressed the issue by saying, “The design specifications and guidelines for the 6th Gen Intel Core processor using the LGA 1151 socket are unchanged from previous generations and are available for partners and 3rd party manufacturers. Intel can’t comment on 3rd party designs or their adherence to the recommended design specifications. For questions about a specific cooling product we must defer to the manufacturer.”
Intel still sells stock coolers for all of their CPU's, they just don't ship with them. Intel coolers are more than adequate unless you are going crazy with overclocking. Intel coolers don't bend Intel CPU's.
Not sure why you are blaming Intel here.
Intel still sells stock coolers for all of their CPU's, they just don't ship with them.
Huh? The last two I personally purchased (Ivy Bridge i5-3570K and Skylake i7-6700) both provided a heatsink+fan.
Intel coolers are more than adequate unless you are going crazy with overclocking. Intel coolers don't bend Intel CPU's.
Both 100% true. The fans on the Intel coolers are quiet under common loads (gaming included) and the temperatures are in spec at all times. The only time I've ever heard the CPU get loud enough to matter was running prime95 to deliberately load the devices.
I don't know what "high pressures" kriston is talking about. The Intel cooler, particularly on the Skylake, didn't require high pressure to install. Honestly the Skylake case kind of confused me because so little pressure was needed.
This is about overclockers buying out-of-spec aftermarket stuff. Self inflicted.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Look, oh_my_shittynumbers is being an idiot again.
The question isn't whether or not shit is thinner, it clearly is.
The question is whether:
A: Third party heatsinks are exceeding the limit (50 pounds) for mounting pressure.
B: Intel fucked up and the 50 pound limit needs to be lowered for the thinner shit.
C: Both A and B.
My guess is A.
The heatsink mounting pressure is way over limit for many third-party heatsinks, but the 50 pound limit was conservative for older Intel CPUs and they could handle a lot more. The newer CPUs can almost certainly handle the listed 50 pounds, and more, but not nearly as much as the older CPUs.
Anyone who has installed a large third-party heatsink knows that the fucking motherboard will flex and bend and you'll put a ton of fucking pressure on it when installing it and trying to get it latched/screwed/etc. properly. After installation you look at it and think "Uh, is this really okay? Should I switch to a horizontal configuration?". But you'll leave it vertical anyway.
I'm curious why my previous post was marked a troll. I *have* worked in academic HPC for over a decade, have assembled dozens of server motherboards over the years, and over two dozen for myself and family. I'm not exactly a newb here.
Intel consumer-grade OEM heatsinks (as of Haswell at least, perhaps they fixed the issue on Skylake OEM heatsinks and I'm unaware) are boat anchors. On two quality Haswell motherboards (Asus H97M and H97I) I have, the OEM heatsink fails to mount sturdily in the motherboard, and pops out with only the slightest jarring.
Third-party heatsinks would be much less necessary if the OEM heatsink would actually do its job.
I don't remember which one Haswell was (2 generations ago?) but I fucking HATE the Intel mounting design.
You have to line up 4 plastic pegs, and then push and twist (to lock) each of them.
While the pegs have a convenient arrow on them to tell you which direction you need to twist to lock them, they DON'T have an indicator for what the starting position should be. In the unlocked state they're fairly loose and can rotate in the package. I believe the slightly flatter side of the top of the peg should be closest to the heatsink, but I've never truly figured out if that was the case.
The pegs are spring loaded, and if you push them down too far before locking you'll get it stuck in the mounting hole and you'll have to twist and pull and tug to get it back out, upsetting any of the others you have already mounted. Once you do free it, you have to reset the thing to neutral, not just by rotating it to the starting position, but also by determining if the spring or peg are stuck, and you'll need to pull and twist and tug again to reset that.
The things are so fucking finicky. Just use a real backplate with screws. Fuck.