An image of a purported AMD Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processor lid has been shared online, with TechPowerUp publishing this image of unknown origin, claiming that it shows an integrated heat spreader (IHS) that an extreme overclocking enthusiast has pried off.
Above you can see a substantial-looking IHS held aloft in the glove of an overclocker. The design and shape of this heatspreader are highly similar to the one that AMD has shown in official imagery, with characteristic cutouts to the rounded square form. Many of these spaces feature surface mount electronic components on the underlying PCB, necessitating cutouts. Some worry that this design could make it more hazardous to delid Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, but we can't really judge the difficulty level right now. Of course, we don't know if this delid was a success or whether the overclocker inflicted any damage on the components it covered.
We can see the underside of the IHS at enough of an angle to gauge it as being extremely thick. The gap between the heatspreader and the silicon beneath appears to be provided by steps in the eight fixing points.
You can clearly see spots of glue on each of the fixing points, but we can also see the solder left behind on the IHS after it was prized off the chip beneath. As we are accustomed to from the red team, AMD uses metal solder as the thermal interface material (TIM) rather than a paste compound.
At first glance, the solder residue makes it look like the CPU chiplets are too close to the edge, and the I/O die is almost central to the area. However, it looks correct if you ponder AMD's official image of a Ryzen 7000 series chip without an IHS.
You can read more official information about Ryzen 7000 here. More recently, MSI shared a video showing an AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU being installed on one of its upcoming AM5 motherboards. This video was prior evidence of an extremely heavyweight IHS.
If TechPowerUp's image is genuine, it looks a distinct possibility that there could be some serious CPU overclock and benchmarking of AMD's latest and greatest CPUs in process. It wouldn't be a surprise if some of these results accidentally found their way online and got spotted by the throng of Twitter leakers in due course.
