Professional extreme overclocker Roman "der8auer" Hartung from Germany recently managed to successfully de-lid his AMD Ryzen 7 1700 processor and confirmed that AMD is, in fact, using solder as its thermal interface material of choice between the Ryzen die and IHS (integrated heat spreader). The confirmation that AMD is using solder is promising news for enthusiasts eager to overclock the new processors and see just how far they are able to push them on air and water cooling.
Image credit: Roman Hartung. Additional high resolution photos are available here.
In a video on his YouTube channel, der8auer ("The Farmer") shows the steps involved in delidding the Ryzen 7 1700 which involve using razor blades, a heating element to get the IHS heated to a temperature high enough to melt the indium (~170°C on the block with the indium melting around 157°C), and a whole lot of courage. After using the razor blades to cut the glue around the edges, he heated up the IHS enough to start melting the solder and after a cringe-worthy cracking sound he was able to lift the package away from the IHS with the die and on-package components intact!
He does note that the Ryzen using PGA rather than the LGA method Intel has moved to makes the CPU a bit harder to handle as the pins are on the CPU rather than the socket and are easily bent. Compared to the delidding process and possibility of cracking the die or ripping off some components and killing the $329 CPU though, bent pins are nothing and can usually be bent back heh. He reportedly went through two previous Ryzen CPUs before getting a successful de-lid on the third attempt after all.
It seems that AMD is using two small pads of Indium solder along with some gold plating on the inside of the IHS to facilitate heat transfer and allow the solder to mate with the IHS. Because AMD is using what seems to be high quality solder TIM, delidding and replacing the TIM does not seem to be necessary at all; however, Roman "der8auer" Hartung speculates that direct die cooling could work out very well for those enthusiasts brave enough to try it since the cooler does not need to put high amounts of pressure onto the CPU to hold it into place unlike an LGA socket.
If you are interested in seeing the overclocking benefits of de-lidding and direct die cooling a Ryzen CPU, keep an eye on his YouTube channel for a video over the weekend detailing his testing using a Ryzen 7 1800X.
I am really looking forward to seeing how far enthusiasts are able to push Ryzen (especially on water), and maybe we can convince Morry to de-lid a Ryzen CPU!
Happy Overclocking!
Also read:
That is some great news to
That is some great news to not flip your lid over! No Intel brand of tooth paste goo and a great value from AMD. Take That you polyester suit clad Intel bean counters!
Uh… they’re not PRAISING
Uh… they’re not PRAISING AMD for using solder… read the article dude.
…maybe you should read the
…maybe you should read the article again. Holy cow.
“The confirmation that AMD is
“The confirmation that AMD is using solder is promising news for enthusiasts”
That does not sound negative to me!
“It seems that AMD is using two small pads of Indium solder along with some gold plating on the inside of the IHS to facilitate heat transfer and allow the solder to mate with the IHS. Because AMD is using what seems to be high quality solder TIM, delidding and replacing the TIM does not seem to be necessary at all”
Sounds ok for most who do not have the chops to do a risky de-lidding that may damage the processor!
“Roman “der8auer” Hartung speculates that direct die cooling could work out very well for those enthusiasts brave enough to try it since the cooler does not need to put high amounts of pressure onto the CPU to hold it into place unlike an LGA socket.”
More good news for those with the chops to do a proper de-lidding job, but Joe Gamer can get by well not doing any de-lidding at all on AMD’s Ryzen, unlike Intel’s nasty tooth paste two bit cheap out solution!
WTF are you on about! AMD’s thermal solution is the better choice! So you just flip you lid and cry those Delicious Tears all over your crappy Intel tooth paste goo!
it’s in engrish. how about u
it’s in engrish. how about u read it again.
This anonymous thread is hard
This anonymous thread is hard to follow heh. Of course wait and see what it is actually capable of overclocking wise (I think you are going to need a water loop or a very beefy air cooler to really push Ryzen as pushing beyond the stock clocks is going to mean a lot of heat from these chips). Using a good TIM (in this case reportedly high quality solder) certainly doesnt hurt matters though :-). I coud guess what clocks are likely to happen but not sure if i could be close on where the wall is I am guessing with a good cooler 4.2 is likely… 4.5+ eh, it'll be difficult/(even possible?) even on water. This is an 8c/16t processor! 🙂 The Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 might have more headroom to hit higher clocks and get better single thread perf though since you will have less heat to deal with. I wonder.. is it possible to disable cores on these Ryzen 7 chips in the BIOS/UEFI?
The 4c/8t parts and what they hit are what should be compared to things like the 7700k. As is the 7700k should overclock higher than a fully enabled Ryzen 7. It seems like Ryzen 7 gets into the same range of OC clocks as the x99 chips at least on LN2.. hopefully on air/water as well.
The enthusiasts in the overclocking trenches are the experts though and I am looking forward to seeing what you are able to wring out of Ryzen on less exotic coolers!
You will be able to disable
You will be able to disable them in their new overclocking utility 😉
Intel’s decision to use paste
Intel’s decision to use paste has nothing to do with the bean counters, we can debate the quality and cost of the paste Intel decided to use if you wish but perhaps you’d care to backup your claim first by providing some proof that the paste Intel is using is of poor quality or cheap.
Its cheaper than a soldered
Its cheaper than a soldered TIM which was one of the reasons they went with it.
Supposedly its also tough to do a soldered TIM on small dies due to thermal stressing of the solder but I kind’ve doubt that is a big issue. They’d just need to thicken the solder pad a bit more to allow it to flex better I believe.
You can’t just thicken the
You can’t just thicken the solder joint as you increase thermal resistance and increase the possibility of thermal fatiguing, do you really think a company spending $3.28 billion a year on R&D and whose published research papers on the material science of thermal interfaces is going to penny pinch on the the actual TIM.
Ask the many de-lidders who
Ask the many de-lidders who go through with the de-lightful de-lidding process just to scrape that God Awful Intel tooth paste goo off of their delidded dies just to put a proper thermal compound on and re-lid all over again. And it’s all just to get those better thermals and overclocking headroom.
That’s Intel for you, more worried about its high end consumer E series SKUs being used for some server duty and cannibalizing some business from its even higher margin server parts business. AMD’s going to fix those high margins from Intel business with AMD’s Ryzen/Zen Consumer and Professional CPU SKUs that are here today for desktop/E consumers and will be coming 2H of 2017 for the server and the consumer APU markets.
So you just keep flipping your lid, Intel Goo Kid, but AMD chose the proper thermal soltion for its customers!
Yea because all those people
Yea because all those people who’ve delidded there CPU’s have tested the thermal interface they’ve used is going to last for the next 10+ years, like it or not Intel has to consider both longevity and performance.
If you knew anything about the material science of thermal interfaces you’d know Intel’s decision had nothing to do with costs, to claim it was shows you ignorance on the subject.
However if you believe the myth that Intel changed to a cheap low performing paste to save money then at least do people the curtsey of naming what paste they use so we can compare it’s cost and performance with other pastes.
They’ll be an article out
They'll be an article out shortly concerning the quality of the TIM used on the Kaby Lake processors and what steps can be taken to "correct" the problem 🙂
proof that the use crappy
proof that the use crappy TIM? I had to delid my 3570k to get even halfway decent temps, the TIM is infact crappy, really really crappy, and half the time applied badly.
Sounds very promising to me.
Sounds very promising to me. Sounds like the superior for AMD. Good for them.
I already ordered a
I already ordered a high-performance Peltier (240 W cooling at 0 K Delta T), now I´m sure it will be usefull. Let´s see whats possible with the IHS kept constantly to 10°C
>Peltier
>2017
Is this Back
>Peltier
>2017
Is this Back to The Future, or something?
Peltier works perfect if you
Peltier works perfect if you keep the hot side below 30°C
HOW will you keep the hot
HOW will you keep the hot side below 30c, though? The only way how I can see you do it, if you route the entire firggin’ thing outside of your house during winter. And winter season is pretty much over (I’m in Russia, and even here it’s pretty warm now, even with snow still lying around).
CPU also works very well if
CPU also works very well if you keep the hot side below 30. Or wait, actually it can work very well when it’s much hotter then that. So how is peltier making it any different exactly? 😀
I applaud your attempt to use
I applaud your attempt to use a peltier but I don’t think its going to cut it unfortunately.
Even monster 400W+ peliters can’t deal well with modern 4 core chips. A 8 core Ryzen will overload that thing and then kill itself if you try it with a sub 300W peltier.
They’re nowhere near 100% efficient at moving heat around and as you get closer to the peak power rating the power consumption for them skyrockets.
Only way they’re practical these days is if you run lots of them in a series at low power to keep efficiency really high with a large block to cool a water loop and chill the CPU to below ambient temps. Still expensive and tough to do so no one really bothers these days.
Okay so they done a good job
Okay so they done a good job in building their cpu and yes it was hard for him to dield it in the first two try and end up killing 2 cpu but that doest mean it is a bad cpu. the material use are of good quality he said in his vid, but from what i heard and seen from kaby lake cpu it has some bad cpu heatsink cap that crack while applying pressure try to search it and it uses flimsy material too so the kaby lake cpu have higher heat output
Been saying it since day-one
Been saying it since day-one when it was leaked to OCUK.
All those inexperienced uneducated kindergartner-tier morons who were actually inept enough to argue with me on this…their butthurt right now is truly delightful.
Why not tell us what you
Why not tell us what you really think. 🙂
ESAD (c) Duke
ESAD (c) Duke
Read the article and yes this
Read the article and yes this is good manufacturing, great stuff!
hmm, never delidded anything
hmm, never delidded anything more than a cup of coffee but is there a reason why the lid can’t be cut or grinded away?
you know just remove the extra and once you’re left with some metal on top of the core it might be a bit easier to melt the solder, better control and less risk of damaging it?