Intel's Sub-Par Ivy Bridge Cooling Busted

For some reason or other, Intel chose to use common thermal grease between the Ivy Bridge CPUs and their integrated heatspreader (IHS). What people didn't realize was that said grease was of a fairly low quality too. 

We should first mention that the temperature Ivy Bridge works at isn't really a hazard, but we have to wonder why Intel allowed this situation to happen. These are high-end, expensive chips, not cheap models where every cut corner counts. 

It was back in late April when we reported on that intentional design change that has been acknowledged as the cause behind the operational temperature of Ivy Bridge CPUs. It might not have even been noticed if Sandy Bridge hadn’t run cooler. 

Rather than fluxless solder, the Santa Clara, California-based company put common thermal compound between the chip and the IHS. We just never noticed how sub-par it was. 

Fortunately, the folks at Impress PC Watch embarked upon a quest to find out precisely that, and the results aren't at all flattering. After wiping away the thermal grease, they tested the Core i7-3770K with OCZ's Freeze Extreme and Coollaboratory's Liquid Pro. 

The latter supposedly offers 82W/mk of thermal conductivity, which is better than OCZ's Freeze Extreme, and that's saying something. One would expect us to be setting up a great reveal, where Intel's solution was better than OCZ's but weaker than Liquid Pro. 

Alas, that is not the case. Instead, Impress PC Watch found both alternatives to be vastly superior to the default grease. When running at 3.5 GHz, the Core i7-3770K quad-core high-end chip ran at 8 degrees Celsius less on Freeze Extreme and 11 degrees less with Liquid Pro. Moreover, a 4.6 GHz overclock led to an even higher difference, of 15 and 20 degrees, respectively. 

Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E was employed during the tests, so the gaps could vary depending on whatever other CPU cooler is present. Be advised, though, that removing the integrated heatspreader of a CPU can damage the CPU die and will void the warranty in any case. Test at your own risk.

Posted in: Hardware, Review