For overclockers: new ivy-bridge-E chips to use solder instead of thermal paste

#1

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/31285/rumortt-intel-s-ivy-e-to-use-solder-not-paste-for-die-heat-spreader-thermal-transfer/index.html

This is potentially major news for overclockers who are looking for 6-core CPU’s with the socket 2011 platform, but don’t want to buy one of the current (and old) 3930k or 3960x chips.

Both Ivy-bridge and Haswell consumer grade CPU’s are severely hindered at higher overclocking because instead of using solder like intel’s higher-grade chips, they use thermal paste between the heat spreader and CPU core. When the 4-core ivy-bridge or haswell chips are overclocked to 4.7ghz and ran hard, CPU temps would spike and reach 90+ degrees over long periods of time.

People that were brave enough to remove the head spreader of an ivy bridge or haswell CPU and attach their cooler directly to the CPU core generally saw temps go down as much as 20 C. People that replaced the internal thermal paste with better thermal paste saw 5-7 degree C drop in temps. Removing the heat spreader AKA “delidding” is extremely risky to the CPU core and voids warranty.

Theoretically, the soon-to-be-released 4930k and 4960x could probably reach 5ghz or higher on air. That combined with the faster ivy-bridge-E architecture, would mean cinebench scores around 15.5 or higher with single-threaded cinebench scores around 2.1 or so.

#2

I think they’re saying that’s a good thing. Right? I wasn’t aware they used thermal paste instead of solder for a while. Thanks for the heads up!

#3

yeah it’s a good thing.

Intel’s generally used solder for most of their chips, but on occasion has used thermal paste to cut costs or get new chip designs out the door sooner.

This is the main reason the 4-core sandy-bridge 2500k, 2600k, and 2700k’s could reach 5-5.2ghz easily, while the 4-core ivy-bridge and haswell chips struggle to maintain 4.6-4.7ghz

From my perspective, when the 3770k came out, it wasn’t an upgrade to the 2600k after you overclocked them.

#4

Unfortunately, from what I’ve read, it looks like no x89 and the new chips will max out at 6 threads. I was really looking forward to an upgrade to an 8 core chip that could overclock along with a newer chipset than the aging x79.

#5

ivy-e with solder MIGHT be very interesting, and the last of the truly insane OC chips.

An Haswell redux with solder medium would be cool (no pun intended, I swear), but currently the VR having been moved on board, the intense interference of the IGPU at certain clocks, and some other factors that make it an excellent mobile platform also make it too packed even for it’s bigger surface to be an OC beast, regardless of transmission.

Soldering medium isn’t all benefits actually. Thermally, it’s great, but beside making chips marginally more expensive (irrelevantly), it also introduces a higher fault rate in new production lines and (allegedly) limits some layout decisions, which is why it’s becoming an infrequent first gen choice.

It might be a while (if ever) before we see Haswell with solder medium, and even then it might not be the massive jump Sandy was (allegedly it also has better and better packed paste than the previous gen, but it’s of course nothing like soldering would be).

Edit: thanks for posting the article BTW, hadn’t caught this.

#6

yeah, the thought crossed my mind if overclocking will die off eventually when chips are integrated directly into the motherboard by 2015 or whatever intel said.

At the same time, I wonder if anything would really change with overclocking as long as intel continues to offer K-series chips/boards.

#7

They’ve already done multiple 180s on that at this point. They seem rather directionless long term right now, so I’m not as concerned as I was before.
I don’t think until all their plans for Phi, external or internal serial interfaces supporting computional extension and all those things reach maturity they will diverge much from the current state of things.

As for K, for as long as they basically get to charge premium for chips that only require a tiny added screening early in a gen, and none later, I think they won’t abandon them.

To be honest though it’s more that they sell a lot of downclocked stuff for a high price and only with the K chips you get what you pay for technologically when you compare it to the past. It’s like nVIDIA’s thermal targets being sold as free on-board overclocking, when it’s really a safety underclocking measure :slight_smile:

#8

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