Friday, May 27th 2022
Thermal Grizzly Announces Contact Frame For Intel Alder Lake, Promises to Reduce Temperatures by up to 10º
Thermal Grizzly has developed a new Contact Frame designed specifically to fix bending issues present with Intel's latest 12th Gen, Alder Lake CPUs. Developed in partnership with overclocking extraordinaire Der8auer, the new Contact Frame promises to lower operating temperatures on Intel's Alder Lake. According to the company, this improvement is achieved by fixing that platform's independent loading mechanism (ILM), which has been proven to slightly deflect the integrated heatspreader (IHS), reducing its heat transfer capability.
As tested by Igor's Lab, the new contact frame for LGA 1700 reduced the operating temperature of Intel's Core i9-12900K by as much as 10.19 °C - from 70.48 °C without the Contact Frame and towards 60.29 °C after it was installed. The CPU was configured to run popular stress test Prime95, with Small FFT at a fixed 5 GHz frequency on its P-cores. The processor's E-cores were deactivated so as not to compromise the results, while the memory subsystem was run at DDR5-7000. Thermal Grizzly's Contact Frame isn't the only product in this category, and the company is introducing their product at €39.90 for the German and European markets (~$36). Enthusiasts have likely spent more in cooling upgrades that delivered a lesser final operating temperature improvement.
Sources:
Thermal Grizzly Contact Frame, via Tom's Hardware, Igor's Lab
As tested by Igor's Lab, the new contact frame for LGA 1700 reduced the operating temperature of Intel's Core i9-12900K by as much as 10.19 °C - from 70.48 °C without the Contact Frame and towards 60.29 °C after it was installed. The CPU was configured to run popular stress test Prime95, with Small FFT at a fixed 5 GHz frequency on its P-cores. The processor's E-cores were deactivated so as not to compromise the results, while the memory subsystem was run at DDR5-7000. Thermal Grizzly's Contact Frame isn't the only product in this category, and the company is introducing their product at €39.90 for the German and European markets (~$36). Enthusiasts have likely spent more in cooling upgrades that delivered a lesser final operating temperature improvement.
70 Comments on Thermal Grizzly Announces Contact Frame For Intel Alder Lake, Promises to Reduce Temperatures by up to 10º
many of them said that it did nothing, one said it got worse.
the whole "IHS BENDING!!!!" fuzz is completely out of proporting just like the "bad caps" on early ampere cards even if it was a driver bug.
if you have bad contact to the IHS open and close the mounting mechanism 10 times in a row and it gets softer to the point where the mounting pressure and distribution is fine.
Especially seeing as the Thermalright version is a 3rd of the price.....
www.hardwareluxx.de/community/threads/stabiles-alder-lake-package-der-thermal-grizzly-cpu-contact-frame-zeigt-sich.1317106/page-2
he had a patent on it since 2015 and they cloned it without permission.
here is his youtube comment.
Temps are where they should be and I tried to check but from what I can see the contact is proper between the IHS and the cooler.
Lapping the CPU (which definitely voided warranty) decreased temperatures by maybe 1-2 °C compared to the washer-only solution, so not much more. I plan getting a Thermalright frame in a few weeks, which might improve temperatures by a few °C more, and then hopefully I will be done torturing this CPU.
I would have probably got a Thermal Grizzly Contact Frame if it wasn't so expensive.
This might work ok setting up on water-cooled but would be a major pain with big HS as you need to remount HS each time to get at the screws, plus once you find the right amount you need to mark, fix the screw head so it doesn't ever move.
IMO different sized washers should have been included so screw mounting is secured properly.
www.igorslab.de/en/german-engineered-bend-aids-for-intels-lga1700-thermal-grizzly-cpu-contact-frame-and-alphacool-apex-backplate-thermal-testing/2/From my own testing, mounting the CPU without ILM at all also works and gives good results (better than with the washers), but then the CPU will get stuck to the cooler due to suction cup effect. And now that I lapped the CPU such effect has become rather strong, so I haven't tried it anymore. In this case mounting pressure was just due to the cooler.