EK Water Blocks Removes CPU Heat Spreader for Better Cooling of Ivy Bridge Chips
EK Water Blocks has released a cheap kit that allows users of existing Supremacy CPU blocks to remove the IHS and let the water block make direct contact with the CPU die.
Since the launch of Intel's Ivy Bridge, many enthusiast users have been a little annoyed at Intel. While in the past, Intel used to always solder the CPU die to the IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader), with the 3rd generation of Core series processors Intel has decided to fill the cavity between the ISH and the die with TIM (Thermal Interface Material). While this wouldn't affect most novice users, enthusiasts can be rather annoyed at this, because as a result, there is even more thermal separation between the CPU die and the chosen heatsink. The problem is that the CPU core will run at significantly higher temperatures than if it were to be soldered. Meanwhile, enthusiasts' biggest nuisance is the lack of thermal headroom for overclocking.
EK Water Blocks, however, has decided to do something to solve this issue the scary way. EK's solution is to simply remove the IHS so that the coolers can make direct contact with the CPU die, which should deliver amazingly good temperatures. The product line will be an add-on that will be called the EK-Supremacy PreciseMount Add-on. The PreciseMount would be an add-on that would only support the Supremacy lineup of water blocks.
Now this may sound like a lot to swallow, and an expensive add-on, but the truth is that it is just a set of screws that are a bit shorter so that the Supremacy water blocks would make direct contact with the CPU die.
Obviously, anybody willing to try this will already be aware of the risks. EK Water Blocks mentions that "this product is not for the faint of heart!" Also note that the kit would not work on any previous generation Core series processors, as the Arrandale, Clarkdale, and Sandy Bridge CPU's IHS's are all soldered to the CPU die, making removal anywhere from difficult to impossible without damaging the CPU irreversibly.
Now the least scary part is its price; the add-on costs only $5.04. Yes, that's right, just five dollars and four cents. Furthermore, it is already available in EK Water Block's online shop here.

NO. it DOESN'T 'ALLOW' you to remove the IHS. smh. i thought it was a kit that helped you remove it easily. i was interested in it until i realized this was just about freakin screws.
NO. it DOESN'T 'ALLOW' you to remove the IHS. smh. i thought it was a kit that helped you remove it easily. i was interested in it until i realized this was just about freakin screws.
Common misconception that you can get noticeably better thermal results from using a more expensive paste. There is about 5C difference between the best paste and worst paste, and anything that's at least as good as Arctic Silver 5 will be within one or two degrees of the top.
It's better, but it's not enough to actually buy you any more headroom.
Not always. All P4 systems with an LGA 775 P4 that I've seen use an IHS.
That is wrong. The paste used by Intel is utter garbage. Using even a decent past such as AC5 can improve heat transfer by around 20% according to tests done earlier (links to which are found in Tom's original Ivy Bridge launch article).
Humm, no.
The dies on early Pentiums were mounted on the back of a ceramic slab to which pins were attached so the HSF was making contact with the CPU's packaging/substrate. This arrangement has rather high thermal resistance from die to heatsink.
When Intel went with FC-BGA, they introduced Slot-1 and AMD introduced Slot-A where the CPU ships with HSF bolted to the CPU+cache PCB.
The P3 is the only Intel chip I remember where end-users had to put their HSF directly on the exposed CPU die. Every other desktop Intel CPU after that (s370/P3) had the IHS.
On another note, I've seen someone do this using a highly-conductive compound and lose about 20*C off of an OC already touching 80* C. That alone proved to me Intel's path moving to TIM and ditching their excellent flux-less solder method was the wrong direction.
all the amd duron and athlon xp range the heatsink was directly to die. quite a few intel mobile processors were (and probably still are) direct to die also.
Yep. That was the fun stuff with the Athlon and the clip-on heatsinks. You'd attach one side first, then had to push down with a lot of pressure to get the clip on the other side. The challenge was to keep the downward pressure balanced, even though the natural tendency is to push harder on the side that needs to clip in.
At least back then, you could buy a top-end Athlon for $100-150 though. Chip your Ivy Bridge, and you're looking at losing quite a bit more.
I know AMD had many more exposed die models than Intel and that many of Intel's mobile parts also lack IHS. The comment I was replying to specifically named Pentiums and the only bare-core Pentiums with user-replaceable heatsinks are the P3s on s370.
In laptops and other highly proprietary form factors that may use the mobile variants, replacing the included custom HSF is usually impossible and in most cases, neither is overclocking. For those, whether there is an IHS or not makes no difference.
Back then, a 1GHz P3-Coppermine would have set you back ~$800 and that makes the $300 i7-3770 seem like a bargain today: 25-30X the processing power for less than half the price even before adjusting for inflation!
Personally, I am glad the days of ~$1000 "extreme" CPUs are over.
Or sanding the heat spreaders until you barely saw the die below, a fraction to much and the die was doomed!
P4? seriously? how old are you?
i was thinking intel P3 FCPGA and Athlon XP processors. in fact it was my very first thought when i saw the chip " oh an amd Xp cpu".
i wasn't scared at all so long as the cpu cooler mounting system took most of the burden off the chip, which at that time was the socket itself.
this kit the first thing i would do is replace those washers with much wider ones to make up for the lack of structural support being placed on the MB. thickness and compression will be the 2 biggest concerns if you do this, so don't use rubber washers stick with hard plastic.
P4? seriously? how old are you?
i was thinking intel P3 FCPGA and Athlon XP processors. in fact it was my very first thought when i saw the chip " oh an amd Xp cpu".
i wasn't scared at all so long as the cpu cooler mounting system took most of the burden off the chip, which at that time was the socket itself.
this kit the first thing i would do is replace those washers with much wider ones to make up for the lack of structural support being placed on the MB. thickness and compression will be the 2 biggest concerns if you do this, so don't use rubber washers stick with hard plastic.
(heatburst) was stated after Pentium in the post I replied to. I assumed this was in reference to Netburst. Are you suggesting that there were Netburst P3s that I'm not aware of or that heatburst would be in reference ot something else?
Also, the post that I replied to said Athlon FX, not XP.