Ivy Bridge Is Hotter Than It Should Be Due to Intentional Design Choice

Most people may not know that central processing units have integrated heatspreaders, but the number of prospective buyers who do may rise now that Ivy Bridge is out.

People who got a hold of Ivy Bridge engineering samples, as well as reviewers, mostly agree on at least one fact about the Ivy Bridge: it is too hot.

Not too hot to safely operate mind you, just a bit warmer than it should be.

Whether because of a hunch or a tip of some sort, the folks at Overclockers.com decided to investigate what the problem might be.

It turns out that it isn't a problem per se, but a design decision on Intel's part.

In the Sandy Bridge chips, the previous-generation collection, the Santa Clara, California-based company used flux-less solder in the CPU packages.

For those who don't know all the details, the solder was placed between the CPU die and the integrated heatspreader.

For the Ivy Bridge CPUs, Intel has chosen to use regular thermal paste between the CPU die and the IHS, as well as the sides of the die.

There is an upside to this, in that it is easier to remove the IHS (with flux-less solder, the die could be ripped off the CPU package altogether if one were to attempt to remove the heatspreader).

However, there is little to no chance that anyone besides extreme overclockers will ever consider the idea of taking their beloved and expensive CPU apart. As such, that Intel chose this design element solely for their benefit is rather unlikely.

But that leaves the question of why Intel would do this at all. Some people have begun to speculate, on the web, that the move was part of an agreement between the company and makers of coolers. The latter could, after all, exploit this design decision and make special cooling products advertised to work this or that much better when the IHS is absent. We'll wait and see before we draw our own conclusions.

Posted in: Hardware, Review