Intel Core i9-10900K gets decapitated and cooled with Liquid Metal
And I do mean the heatspreader was removed, delidded. Which is a gnarly job as that thing is soldered on there. Even with Intel's new design that reduces the height of the DIE for better thermal transfer.
Germany distributor and Caseking (etailer) employee Der8auer beheaded the beast, Intels Core i9-10900K has been examined and cooled differently by applying liquid metal. He also looked at what has changed under the heatspreader since Intel's Core i7-8700K and Core i9-9900K. Comet Lake-S is still based on Intel's 14 nm process, the CPUs are not exactly marveling under load in regards to temperatures. With the heat spreader removed and the solder applied replaced with a layer of liquid metal he put the heat plate back on. After two runs with the Cinebench R20, he dropped around seven degrees in temperature. And sure, that can make a difference to a pro overclocker.
These were the results:
Pre-Delid | Post-Delid - 1st. Run | Post-Delid - 2nd. Run | Pre-Delid and 2nd. Post-Delid difference | |
Core 0 | 81 ° C | 73 ° C | 74 ° C | -7 ° C |
Core 1 | 79 ° C | 74 ° C | 75 ° C | -4 ° C |
Core 2 | 87 ° C | 78 ° C | 78 ° C | -9 ° C |
Core 3 | 83 ° C | 75 ° C | 77 ° C | -6 ° C |
Core 4 | 85 ° C | 77 ° C | 78 ° C | -7 ° C |
Core 5 | 85 ° C | 76 ° C | 77 ° C | -8 ° C |
Core 6 | 85 ° C | 75 ° C | 77 ° C | -8 ° C |
Core 7 | 80 ° C | 74 ° C | 76 ° C | -4 ° C |
Core 8 | 81 ° C | 73 ° C | 74 ° C | -7 ° C |
Core 9 | 81 ° C | 73 ° C | 75 ° C | -6 ° C |
He then compares the Core i9-10900K with its predecessors and the chip still looks like a Core i9-9900K with a slightly longer die. However, there are some differences in the details. The die height is significantly lower. While the die of the Core i9-9900K still measures 0.88 millimeters, which was 0.58 millimeters for the new processor. However, the newcomer can't get to the die height of the Core i7-8700K: at 0.44 millimeters.
G.SKILL DDR4 Memory Reaches Extreme Speeds with 10th Gen Intel Core Processors - 05/21/2020 07:13 AM
With the latest release of the 10th Gen Intel Core processors and Intel Z490 chipset-based motherboards, G.SKILL demonstrates that DDR4 memory is capable of reaching a higher tier of extreme speed tha...
Dynabook Offers 10th Gen Intel Core vPro on Portégé X Series and Tecra A Notebooks - 05/15/2020 06:51 AM
Dynabook announced the availability of the new 10th Gen Intel Core Processors with vPro technology on the company's premium Portégé X Series (X30-G, X30L-G, X40-G & X50-G) and performance Tecra...
Spain Etailer starts listing retail prices 10th Intel Core. Generation processors - 05/13/2020 08:09 AM
Though the official prices have been announced by Intel, it's always wait and see what the retail prices will be like. One of the largest hardware stores in Spain, if not the largest, listed the pric...
Intel Core i5-10400 Gets Benchmarked and tested, much faster SMT over Core i5 9400 - 05/12/2020 02:51 PM
Processors like these could be good gaming CPUs, and yes once again in Asia on the ChipHell forums a leak occurred. This round the Core i5-10400 processor (6c/12t) listed for USD $184indicates it co...
Intel Core i9-10900K at defaults stressed, Power Consumption Reads 235W, Temperatures hits 93°C - 05/12/2020 07:21 AM
In the land far East (Asia) some leaks have been occurring, a new one is interesting as it shows a stock clocked Intel Core i9-10900K 10-core processor running an AIDA FPU stress test. And it shows th...
Senior Member
Posts: 4203
Joined: 2007-05-05
Pair that up with direct die

Can't wait for my 9900KS++ to come in I mean 10700K

Exactly, as he mentions at the end of the video they have one on the way, much better option than to reuse the IHS.
For air there are custom IHS's made out of copper, copper + nickel etc.
Not sure how much temperature difference those apply to make it worth it.
Senior Member
Posts: 5521
Joined: 2003-04-26
Exactly, as he mentions at the end of the video they have one on the way, much better option than to reuse the IHS.
For air there are custom IHS's made out of copper, copper + nickel etc.
Not sure how much temperature difference those apply to make it worth it.
I bought one of those copper IHS for my bro and he always brags about getting 60C temps on his delidded 8086K lol
Senior Member
Posts: 564
Joined: 2015-11-21
He meant to remove thickness and level the IHS.
Sandpaper, a steady hand and a lot of measuring.
Could probably make a tool with a drill stand and a sander or something in that line.
in the same topic
wafer back-grinding (talking about the die here not IHS) is done with heavy machinery https://cdn.caeonline.com/images/accretech-tsk-pg-300-rm-572225.PNG a lot of vertical pressure slow downward movement but (not too) fast spinning (or you burn the silicium) and nowadays slurry at the last stage https://www.syagrussystems.com/images/syagrus diagram-Nov2.jpg so you get a finish so flat and perfect it becomes a mirror
thinning the die more for intel would pose many problems, 1st on a 12" you can't go that low the risk of breakage becomes too big and back-grinding dicing is at the end of the process where the wafers have the maximum cost just a guess but I can imagine an Intel 10xxx wafer costing an easy 100'000$ at that stage you don't want to break one (dicing, picking you lose a few dies, back-grinding the wafer is usually scrap)
if a thicker die allows you to save even 1 wafer/year it's worth it for the manufacturer this I'm sure plays a big role in why dies aren't super thin, final product cooling performance comes after not losing hundreds of thousands of dollars
Senior Member
Posts: 395
Joined: 2017-02-15
Had a 4790k I got in 2014. Hit 95~100C in seconds of any bench test on stock intel cooler. What a rip-off (knew the cooler was bad going in but gave it a test anyway, wow, how could they get away with this?). Prime95 out-right crashed the system with a BSOD due to motherboard fail-safe procedure in about 5 seconds, if that. Yes, I know you shouldn't run Prime95 on those, I just wanted to see how long it would last. It was at stock settings, stock 4ghz speed... for five seconds TOPS it lasted. Not a good show of a reliable product with company standing firmly behind what they sell. TRASH.
Pig of a chip. Couldn't go over 4.5ghz even with a window AC unit pumping directly into the case, even that didn't turn out to last.
Needed delidding (and a delid tool), liquid metal under and over the IHS.
Needed a 100$ air cooler (okay I spent 20~30$ extra to get one with 'designer colors' having dumped that much into it already) to even run properly and not be throttled below 4ghz stock speed all the time.
After all that, I could run all-core at the 4.4ghz turbo speed. That was it.
Asus Maximus Hero z97 board, 2400mhz cl-11 memory, big case, plenty of fans.
Has I known it was going to be all for nothing, I would have just got a non-K sku and a mainstream basic motherboard.
All that extra money spent and couldn't even upgrade the CPU unless I wanted to spend 350~400$ on a 5775C which wasn't really an 'upgrade' but maybe a few % here or there.
While I will admit for it's time it was no slouch, I'd have rather shaved 250$ off extra costs and gotten still most of the speed boost I originally did.
I don't miss paying all that money for little to no extra gain.
So when I needed a new system I built AMD w/x570 chipset (on a cheapo ASRock motherboard!) and 3700x with a yes-you-guessed-it stock cooler - a stock cooler that's functional!
I opened up the boxes, tested/verified the parts, assembled the system, set XMP in BIOS to it's ho-hum bargain-bin 3000mhz cl-15 settings, and was onto installing the OS.
Love it, impressed many times over, way better than my experience with an intel chip. I'm almost 40 here, as I've stated before, I 'Don't want to mess with that stuff anymore', 'I just want to be productive' when I sit here, not play Mr. Wizard with the thing. "Set it and forget it" is the idea here.
--Combo price 7/2019 for intel and AMD (this is when I had purchased all parts) :
AMD get 50$ off motherboard with qualifying Ryzen 3xxx purchase. This dropped the cheapest x570 Asrock board from 154.99$ to 104.99$
3700x Box CPU 329.99$ motherboard 104.99$ for Asrock x570 Phantom Gaming 4, both new. 434.98$ pre-tax. Stock cooler included free in price as it 'works fine' - still using it, too!
Intel (no discount!) 9900k + Z390 or Z370 motherboard was ball-parked in the range of 489.99$ for the CPU + 150~400$ for motherboard, so at a min/max of 639~889$ USD + Cooler costs of 40~120$ depending on which you got. So that price could be 679$ at the start, ended up ramping up to around 1000$ for board, chip, and cooler!
Not including extra costs for special thermal compound as you get some with the cooler (does anyone use that included stuff except 1st time builders?).
Also not including the costs of a custom loop or any additional case-fans you might need with intel's heat.
I am also not including the cost of an increase of 40~50$ in a bigger power supply you would need for the intel chip.
I did not include RAM costs because I just snagged a pair of 16gb 3000mhz Crucial Ballistix sticks out of the bargain bin, which I would have done regardless of brand picked, it would have been equal.
So *YES* those of you who built 9900k systems, I HOPE it's faster than this 3700x. For a little less than double to well over double the cost, I hope for your bank balance sake it IS faster.
I just COULD NOT see to spending double for that 'last 3~8%' of speed. Even if it was 15~20% in everything, I would not have budged. After the miserable experience with my 4790k, fast or not, I likely wouldn't have gone intel if the price was equal. This coming from someone who almost always tried to have an intel system when possible - even in the Pentium 4 days (that, that was painful).
That said, if I could do it over again, I would not change anything. This cheapo ASRock board has been great. The 3700x doesn't bog down even with everything running, as the scheduler (and amount of L3 cache) is so much superior to the 4790k - and the RAM bandwidth is somewhere in the ball-park of double the 4790k's stock bandwidth (this is something often overlooked, yes it does matter but not worth spending double your price on RAM for!).
I have an aversion to water cooling - I don't care if a company like Corsair warranties the whole entire computer if their liquid cooler springs a leak and fails. I am NOT interested. If I cannot AIR COOL it, I do NOT want it in my system. If the manufacturer is so bad at the customer experience and quality of product that air cannot cool a home PC, I am not giving them my money. This is a production machine for which I do content creation for 3D video games on. Plus, when you have over 35,000$ worth of Oak flooring in your 8 year old house, you don't mess with water more than required.
Money saved allowed me to quickly replace my Rx 480 8gb card that scrambled the desktop at login, on zero notice the following December, with an EVGA 2070 Super to the tune of 572$ off Amazon - too much - but that's the price one must pay (unlike the CPU / chipset) to avoid AMD GPU drivers in a production environment. Would have loved to pay half that for a 5600XT / 5700XT tier card, BUT, again, AMD GPU drivers + production environment DO NOT mix. I do not miss that goings-on one bit, and getting to play Quake II RTX for 5 bucks was awesome and mostly worth the difference to me (good game!). The AMD CPU / Chipset drivers, however, I've had zero issue with. No boosting issues (I used left-over liquid metal on my 3700x after removing heaps of too-much stock paste), or other issues, and still using release-day BIOS on the cheap ASRock board. If that isn't living dangerously, and asking for it (despite no issues), I don't know what is.
So I hope this helps. This is just the typical person buying a Ryzen 3xxx and why I did not pick intel again.
Save that money and spend it on a GPU or a bigger processor or more memory, or a bigger SSD. Try not to go too far beyond one or two paces past the point of diminishing returns, and not any past it if on a tight budget.
I am not entirely sure that I could even look at pricing out a new intel system, until we end up in another AMD FX / Bulldozer era - an era I wish not to remember.
Sorry for the book, but this is the first thing I thought of when delidding comes up. Why should we have to even do that?
Senior Member
Posts: 5521
Joined: 2003-04-26
Pair that up with direct die
Can't wait for my 9900KS++ to come in I mean 10700K