Rumors of Intel switching back to soldered processors is looking a little more certain every day, and now we’ve gotten our most official confirmation from a computer hardware maker.
Eurocom, a maker of high-end gaming and workstations laptops, confirmed to OC3D that Intel’s upcoming Core i9-9900K and Core i7-9700K will indeed come with soldered integrated heat spreaders (IHS). In theory, soldered Coffee Lake Refresh processors will deliver much improved thermal performance than Intel’s previous generations of chips, and this in turn could lead to massive increases in overclocking capacity.
This seems to be exactly the case, given that we’ve seen reports of the Intel Core i7-9700K hitting speeds of 5.5GHz while liquid-cooled and at 5.3GHz while air-cooled.
"New Intel [Core] i9-9900K and [Core] i7-9700K CPUs are coming with gold soldered TIM/IHS to the CPU die. This should help manage the temperatures of the higher-clocked CPUs and will also help with achieving higher overclocked frequencies. Our Sky 'C' super-laptops are ready for 9900K /9700K."
Eurocom
Ever since Intel introduced Ivy Bridge CPUs in April 2012, the company replaced the soldered IHS it had used for years with a cheaper Thermal Interface Material (TIM – aka thermal paste). Unfortunately for Intel, the change in manufacturing seemingly resulted in hotter running processors, which infuriated many enthusiast users and overclockers.
We’ve heard and seen rumors of Intel going back to a gold-plated solder, but Eurocom is our most official source yet, as the company is an actual hardware maker rather an unknown leaker. Eurocom even claims partial credit for convincing Intel to go back to a soldered IHS by pressuring the company for years to make the swap.
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Via PC Gamer
Lead image credit: XFastest
