Personally, I am running a Haswell CPU (“Devil's Canyon”). I don't have any experience with building Skylake-based systems. A few of my coworkers at PC Perspective do, though. They seem to think that the issue is a bit out-of-proportion, except maybe in situations where a PC with a large CPU cooler needs to be transported. Also, Morry has used a similar product, the MSI Die Guard, with his delidding project for QuakeCon 2014, and it failed to prevent his die from cracking. Granted, protecting a bare die is much different from bracing a CPU that still has its heatspreader.
Image Credit: MSI
Those two issues should be kept in mind, though. We're skeptical of the problem in general and, even then, the one time that we used a similar product, it didn't (entirely) do what it was supposed to. Again, none of these situations involved me, personally.
Image Credit: MSI
But now onto the announcement. MSI is releasing the CPU Guard 1151 for new Skylake-based processors. It also works as a “die guard” too, so if you intend on popping the headspreader off, you don't need to choose between two parts. This supposedly works in either scenario. It clamps the processor into the socket, although I can't see how it would do much more than an 1151 socket (and its clamp) itself. MSI did use it during an overclocking competition though, on a delidded Skylake, so there's that.
No pricing or availability are yet available. It could be something to look out for, especially if you haven't installed your processor yet. If you have, you would then need to think about the effort to undo whatever you already have to install this. It's up to you.
is this legitimate, or is
is this legitimate, or is simply MSI capitalizing on an slightly over blown issue? excuse any ignorance on my part, as i dont have any experience with this particular hardware, but from my other experience building machines, and coupled with what S Peak (i think) was saying, this appears to be a very shrewd move on MSI’s part to pick up an extra few bucks imo. im very interested to see what will be the eventual pricing. im sure it will provide a chuckle or two.
No idea. MSI has been known
No idea. MSI has been known to include the Die Guard with certain motherboards. If it's something they just throw in with all new Skylake boards, that would definitely be a good faith move for their customers. I doubt that, however.