Intel may be launching its enthusiast-segment desktop processor, the Core i9-14900KS Special Edition next week, but the chip is already in the hands of several elite overclockers, such as Pakhtunov from OCN. Once he got his hands on one of these, Pakhtunov wasted little time in de-lidding the chip, cleaning it up, grabbing some pics, before throwing it back in the arena for some before-and-after comparisons.

With its stock integrated heatspreader (IHS) in place, a Cinebench 2024 load sees a boost frequency on the P-cores of 5.90 GHz, in which the processor draws a staggering 376 W (as reported by the motherboard's ACPI to software); and a temperature of 85°C, when cooled with a Deepcool LS720 SE 360 mm AIO CLC. With the IHS removed, and at the same 5.90 GHz clocks and Cinebench 2024 load, sees the temperatures drop to 75°C, and power-draw to 366 W. The story repeats with the more brutal Y-cruncher stress test. The original chip with the IHS in place, and a 5.90 GHz boost on the P-cores, pulls a staggering 432 W, and 89°C temperatures. Remove the IHS, and the temperature drops to 82°C, with 409 W package power. It's worth noting here, that with the IHS removed, Pakhtunov used a liquid-metal TIM application between the die and the cold-plate.

EK, the renowned leader in computer cooling technology, is proud to announce a groundbreaking addition to its AIO lineup: the EK-Nucleus AIO CR360 Direct Die D-RGB - 1700. This trailblazing product, a first-of-its-kind in the industry, marks a significant milestone in cooling solutions. The latest Direct Die AIO, while closely resembling the acclaimed 360 mm Lux model in many ways, stands apart with its unique application—it's expertly designed for direct die cooling. This innovative pump-block combo distinguishes itself with a custom-designed cold plate, exclusively engineered for cooling delidded Intel LGA 1700 socket CPUs. EK's latest offering expands its esteemed AIO portfolio and sets a new benchmark in specialized cooling performance.

This unique AIO cooling solution is bringing the advantages of direct die cooling to more PC enthusiasts since delidding was mainly reserved for custom loop liquid cooling applications. It required a complete custom loop setup, which was not affordable or attractive to every user. With the launch of the latest AIO, EK is bringing direct die cooling to the mainstream market. The Direct Die AIO now guarantees a seamless experience and a more budget-friendly entry into direct die liquid cooling. Key elements of the new AIO, like its backplate and die-guard, were co-developed with Der8auer, the famous German overclocker and a pioneer in extreme CPU cooling.

Noctua today introduced its new NM-DD1 direct die kit. Developed in cooperation with professional overclocker and direct die cooling expert Roman "der8auer" Hartung, the NM-DD1 is a mounting spacer kit that makes it possible to use a wide range of Noctua CPU coolers on delidded AMD AM5 processors. Removing the processor's integrated heat spreader (delidding) and putting the heatsink directly onto the dies allows for much more efficient thermal transfer and can thereby lower CPU temperatures significantly, with typical gains in the range of 10-15°C.

"Delidding and direct die cooling will void your CPU's warranty and bear a certain risk of damaging it, so this certainly isn't for everyone," explains Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "However, the performance gains to be had are simply spectacular, typically ranging from 10 to 15°C but in some cases, we've even seen improvements of almost 20°C in combination with our offset mounting bars, so we're confident that this is an attractive option for enthusiast users. Thanks to Roman for teaming up with us in order to enable customers to implement this exciting tuning measure with our CPU coolers!"

RockitCool is a new entrant towards the deliding and IHS replacement game, and the company is offering new delid kits that allow users to replace the Integrated Heatspreader (IHS) on their CPUs in an attempt to achieve better operating temperatures - and potentially improve performance. Considered by some to be one of the most daring quests towards extracting the most performance possible from a given chip, the deliding process is, however, not without its dangers, and will void CPU warranties irrespective of the tool - or care - employed in the operation.

RockItCool's website sprung up earlier this year, and the website doesn't count with many user reviews - but those that are there seem to be glowing. The company specializes in providing complete delid and pure-copper IHS replacement kits, taking advantage of copper's higher thermal conductivity as a way to increase the amount of heat that can be pulled away from the CPU - improving its operating temperatures and power profiles. The copper IHS themselves have guidance markings to ease concerns regarding the application of liquid metal itself, which is a particularly risky substance to misapply around electrical circuitry.

Professional overclocker and extreme cooling products developer der8auer de-lidded a Core i9-10900K 10-core processor to study the processor's behavior with various kinds of custom cooling setups. It was discovered that the 10-core "Comet Lake" die measures 206.1 mm² in die-area. It is 9.2 mm wide like its predecessors, "Coffee Lake" 8-core, 6-core, and 4-core, but is 22.4 mm long, with the outer edges of its packaging material barely within a couple of millimeters of the adhesion point of the integrated heatspreader (IHS). Given what we know about how much each pair of cores adds to these dies, we predict that Intel cannot elongate this die to 12 cores, without having to remove the iGPU. der8auer discovered that using liquid metal TIMs and running the processor de-lidded shaves up to 7 °C off temperatures. Find more technical commentary in the der8auer video presentation.

NUDEcnc the UK company known for its Ncore V1 CPU die waterblock which it launched on Kickstarter 2 years ago has announced its next enthusiast PC product the Nlap DIE and IHS. The Nlap IHS and the Nlap die are new lapping devices for LGA 1151 CPUs designed to make CPU die and IHS lapping easier, allowing users to remove material from their CPU die and integrated heat spreader (IHS) to achieve maximum performance with a die cooling product such as the NCore waterblock.

The Nlap series features accuracy of 0.01 mm to allow for maximum material removal which is especially useful on the Intel Core i9-9900K which features a thicker die than previous generations of CPUs. CPU lapping isn't for the faint of heart as its an extremely dangerous way to improve performance and can easily destroy the CPU if done incorrectly. The Nlap IHS and DIE are available in a kit for £25.99 or for £15.99 individually from NUDEcnc's online store.

We kept seeing hints regarding Intel's 9000-series processors running hot, including from their own board partners. As it turned out, the actual results are a mixed bag with some running very hot and most others ending up being power-limited more so than temperature-limited. Our own review sample showed overall better load temperatures relative to the predecessor 8000-series processors thanks to the soldered TIM (sTIM) used here, to give you some context. But that did not stop overclocker extraordinaire Roman "Der8auer" Hartung from de-lidding the processor to see why they were not generally better as expected.

As it turns out, there are a few things involved here. For one, replacing sTIM with Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut (Der8auer has a financial interest in the company, but he does disclose it publicly) alone improves p95 average load temperatures across all eight cores by ~9 °C. This is to be expected given that the liquid metal has a vastly higher thermal conductivity than the various sTIM compositions used in the industry. Of more interest, however, is that both the PCB and the die are thicker with the Core i9-9900K compared to the Core i7-8700K, and lapping the die to reduce thickness by a few microns also does a lot to lower the CPU temperatures relatively. Overall, Intel have still done a good job using sTIM- especially compared to how it was before- but the current state of things means that we have a slightly better stock product with little scope for improvement within easy means to the consumer.

In his latest Youtube video, famous overclocker der8auer has delidded his AMD Ryzen 5 2600 processor for the sole purpose of evaluating whether the benefits justify the risk. Since the IHS in the new Pinnacle Ridge processors is soldered directly to the die with Indium, delidding the processors is a tricky but not impossible task. Everything melts when it gets warm enough, and indium starts melting around 156.60 °C. Therefore, der8auer had to use a modified version of his popular Delid Die Mate 2 tool by replacing the acrylic pieces with aluminum while also removing the rubber washer. After baking his Ryzen 5 2600 chip in the oven between 170 °C to 180 °C, Der8auer removed the IHS easily with his delidding tool. For his testing, he replaced the indium solder with Thermal Grizzly liquid metal thermal compound. As expected, the results weren't very impressive. With the Ryzen 5 2600 overclocked to 4.1 GHz with 1.35V, the difference was a mere 4 °C under load. So, there you have it. Don't delid your Pinnacle Ridge processor. It's not worth the effort.

A report out of Expreview says that users should expect Intel's 8700K 6-core processor to easily clock up to 4.8 GHz with conventional cooling methods. Apparently, the chip doesn't even need that much voltage to achieve this feat either; however, thermal constraints are quickly hit when pushing Intel's latest (upcoming) leader for the mainstream desktop parts. Expreview says that due to the much increased temperatures, users who want to eke out the most performance from their CPU purchase will likely have to try and resort to delidding of their 8700K. While that likely wouldn't have been necessary with Intel's 7700K processors, remember that here we have two extra CPU cores drawing power and producing waste heat, so it makes sense that thermals will be a bigger problem.

This is understandable: Intel is still using their much chagrined (and divisive) TIM as a heat conductor between the CPU die and the CPU's IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader), which has been proven to be a less than adequate way of conducting said heat. However, we all knew this would be the case; remember that Intel's HEDT HCC processors also feature this TIM, and in that case, we're talking of up to 18-core processors that can cost up to $1,999 - if Intel couldn't be bothered to spend the extra cents for actual solder as an interface material there, they certainly wouldn't do so here. As with almost all peeks at as of yet unreleased products, take this report (particularly when it comes to frequencies, as each CPU overclocks differently) with a grain of salt, please.

Overclocking poster-boy Der8auer has seemingly gotten his hands on some early samples of Intel's Skylake-X high core count (HCC)HEDT CPUs. The upcoming 12 to 18-core enthusiast-class CPUs are being launched on the same X299 platform on socket LGA 2066 that Intel has already launched 4 (Kaby Lake-X), 6, 8 and 10-core parts already, and are supposed to bring Intel towards a level playing field - and then some - with competitor AMD's Threadripper CPUs, which boast of up to 16 cores.

From this delidding process with Der8auer's own delidding tool, Delid-Die-Mate-X, seems to result a die that is much larger - as expected - than Intel's 10-core i9-7900X. At the same time, it seems that Intel is still opting, again, for not soldering its enthusiast-targeted CPUs, which would result in better temperatures and, potentially, overclocking potential. The fact that Der8auer managed to delid the i9-7920X and didn't recommend against doing it likely means that there is minimal risk of damaging your CPU while subjecting it to this process. This is something the renowned overclocker did do when he recommended that users shouldn't delid their Ryzen or Threadripper CPUs looking for better temperatures, since the fact that these were soldered would likely result in both catastrophic damage and a much diminished chance of operating temperatures improvement through the application of special purpose thermal compounds. The Facebook post from Der8auer with the delidded 7920X likely serves as an appetizer for an upcoming delid video on YouTube, as has been the overclocker's MO.