Intel Core i9-7920X Delidded, Massive HCC Die Exposed

[Guest]

Roman Hartung, otherwise known by his overclocking handle Der8auer, delidded an $1,100 i9-7920X and posted pictures to his Facebook account.

Intel Core i9-7920X Delidded, Massive HCC Die Exposed : Read more

 

[John Nemesh]

The lack of solder is the main reason I am not choosing Intel for my next build! This may be a cost cutting move or a decision meant to get the processors on the market faster, but I find the lack of solder inexcusable on a high end chip! I was HOPING this was only a temporary move...in order to launch the new processors fast in response to Threadripper...but it looks like they are sticking with what doesn't work, so I will be shopping elsewhere. I am NOT going to delid a processor just to cool it effectively!

 

[Malik 722]

why intel has solder phobia,why they are afraid of using it.

 

[Jasjar]

It's so they can save like $1

 

[Guest]

I heard that Intel doesn't use solder because their manufacturing process no longer allows it, i.e. they no longer have the machines to do it. It was a choice to save money. They would have to retool, and that would cost X of millions, and extra costs for each chip.

 

[InvalidError]

TIM would be fine if Intel reduced the TIM thickness.

Since Intel does not officially condone overclocking beyond making it possible for a fee, it doesn't have much of an obligation to go out of its way to enable more of it than what it needs to gouge people for the privilege. (And even fewer reasons to bother with the manufacturing complications it brings when the competition has next to no overclocking headroom to speak of to begin with.)

 

[jasonelmore]

The solder is a environmental impact thing, not a cost thing. i agree tho, in these low volume parts, they should use solder

 

[bananaforscale]

Reminds me a bit of the issue with 1 GHz+ Pentium 3s. They couldn't get them to work reliably.

 

[Simon Anderson]

"delidded an $1,100" - "a $1,100" not "an $1,100"

 

[InvalidError]

"delidded an $1,100" - "a $1,100" not "an $1,100"

Both work, only depends on how you decide to pronounce it: "An eleven hundred dollars CPU"

 

[ElMojoMikeo]

I am looking forward to the next review update. As a result of the last Skylake X reviews on here I have been looking at cooling across the board in some detail. The IHS of course came up as the main culprit. Some crazy ideas on that thread alone helps you to look at things differently.

The exotic zero cool technologies with a fridge compressor and the whole shabang! They are great, until I watched a video on how to install it. I will not be doing that until I have practiced it many times over the next year. I don't think that even the mainstream overclockers are ready for such a challenging build. Add to that a life threatening big bang if the compressor leaks and delidding with condensation around a bigger risk.

One thing that became clear is that cooling as we have it now is limited. As I said back on that thread the problem is not new I have struggled to cool X processors with high 150W TDP at base clock for years.

I remain optimistic now that the new Skylake X processors are running hot too, that I will get a new solution to an old problem. I am currently writing an AIO driver for what could be termed a modest step forward. But the lack of coordination from Microsoft and Intel in particular has led to ad hoc drivers badly crafted and all seem to break each other. I can see several good solutions to these problems if the manufactures would just work together, to some degree at least.

I didn't look at any of these issues before the Skylake X Thermal review. I found my fans were actually running free some of the time because the Corsair Link software was broken. The boot up sometimes failed to find the hardware but no warnings were issued. Corsair USB Bridge driver doesn't work with Microsoft USB Bridge driver without which you get general USB hub problems. All of these are affected adversely by ASUS AI suite too. Yes even the OEM has not provided a reliable platform for cooling. All using ad hoc access to the MSR and reducing my system reliability.

With the exception of SIV64 I have removed the lot. The cooling is now working as it should be! If we are going to get better and more sophisticated cooling then it might be time to clean up the Wild West.

 

[Simon Anderson]

Good point, didn't think of that!

 

[Lkaos]

BANANAFORSCALE, what i remember from those days is AMD not having thermal protection on their processor , thus causing processors to burn...How's that for unreliable?

 

[Lkaos]

And that was the main reason AMD processors sold like hot cakes at that time...

 

[Guest]

BANANAFORSCALE, what i remember from those days is AMD not having thermal protection on their processor , thus causing processors to burn...How's that for unreliable?

That was 15 years ago.

 

[Lkaos]

BANANAFORSCALE, what i remember from those days is AMD not having thermal protection on their processor , thus causing processors to burn...How's that for unreliable?

That was 15 years ago.

Well, when did you think the 1 Ghz P3 surfaced?

 

[Guest]

BANANAFORSCALE, what i remember from those days is AMD not having thermal protection on their processor , thus causing processors to burn...How's that for unreliable?

That was 15 years ago.

Well, when did you think the 1 Ghz P3 surfaced?

Why are you living in the past? At that time, Alpha processors were king, and IA64 was the next big thing. And yes, AMD processors would spontaneously combust into great balls of fire.

 

[Lkaos]

BANANAFORSCALE, what i remember from those days is AMD not having thermal protection on their processor , thus causing processors to burn...How's that for unreliable?

That was 15 years ago.

Well, when did you think the 1 Ghz P3 surfaced?

Why are you living in the past? At that time, Alpha processors were king, and IA64 was the next big thing. And yes, AMD processors would spontaneously combust into great balls of fire.

Why dont you go read the whole thread to figure why i said what i did?

 

[bikerepairman1]

I fried more Intels than AMD's (score 5 to 1) in the past. I have at the moment some Intels in my systems (don't laugh... xeon 53xx series) and some AMD's (don't fall from your chair laughing.... Athlon X2 @ 2GHz and 3 opterons (22xx and 275). All of them still running when needed. I don't need more speed for what I do (running 9 VM's, some small databases, mail, textprocessing/spreadsheets, no gaming, no facebook, not overclocking)... I see the need for more cores, maybe less powerconsumpion but not hacking processors to get more effective cooling. (somewhere there is a limit to overclocking and imho the processors are near that point, so why try to pull those last bits of reserve into play?)

 

[tuvok]

You can overclock these chips by boosting 1 2 and 4 cores, leaving the rest alone. That way it reins in the heat.