Intel's Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs will not be soldered

Intel's Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs will not be soldered

| Source: de8auer Author: Mark Campbell

Intel's Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs will not be soldered

The world renowned overclocker der8auer has confirmed that Intel's upcoming Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs will not be using a soldered IHS, a first for an Intel High-end desktop (HEDT) platform.

This presents a number of issues, the largest of which being the thermal performance of these new CPUs, especially when overclocked. It is already well known that non-soldered Intel CPUs can have huge thermal benefits when running with an aftermarket thermal interface material, creating the modern craze known as delidding for Intel CPUs.

With Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X, Intel has decided to use a thermal compound/thermal interface material (TIM) to transfer heat from the CPU to the CPU's integrated heat spreader (IHS), allowing Intel to save time and money when manufacturing these new CPUs.



The problems that arise from using non-soldered CPUs occur because the TIM used by Intel will not have the same thermal conductivity as a directly soldered CPU, which will cause Intel's CPUs to run hotter, especially when overclocked.

This is the first time that Intel has not soldered their high-end desktop CPUs, a move which will no doubt force overclockers to delid their "premium" CPU in order to achieve the same thermal efficiency as Intel's last generation hardware. This move will no doubt be seen negatively by PC enthusiasts, especially after they learn how expensive a proper delidding tool can be.

You can join the discussion on Intel's Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X CPUs being unsoldered on the OC3D Forums.

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