Extreme overclocker recommends heating Arrow Lake CPUs to 165 degrees Celsius before delidding — the CPU has to be hot enough so the indium melts but not too hot to not damage the SMDs

Arrow Lake 200S Die Shot
(Image credit: Tony Yu from Asus, via Bilibili)

YouTube tech creator and extreme overclocker der8auer shared a key tip for safely delidding Intel’s just-launched Core Ultra 200S (codenamed Arrow Lake) chips. According to his post on the overlock.net forums, you should heat the chip above 157 degrees Celsius to melt the indium and make delidding easier. They recommend a target temperature of 165 degrees Celsius, as heating too much could make the glue loose and damage some SMDs.

“If you try the EK delidder you have to be extremely careful not to remove any SMDs around the IHS. You have around 1.5-2mm of room. Now the problem is that you have to heat it up before delidding. This seems very important for Arrow Lake. I know of 2 cases where the CPU was attempted to delid without heat and both died. At the same time I know 10 cases of delidded CPUs with heat and they all still work,” said der8auer.

“You have to heat up above 157 deg C to make the indium melt. We recommend 165 deg C. Now the problem is that once the indium is liquid and you delid, there will be the point where the glue comes loose and it’s just a big bounce of the IHS. And in that scenario you will 99% damage some of the SMDs.” He added, “Trust me, I spent months developing the current delidder.”

Intel 285K Delidding Fully Escalated - Arrow Lake Direct Die - YouTube Intel 285K Delidding Fully Escalated - Arrow Lake Direct Die - YouTube
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Delidding removes the integrated heat spreader (IHS) on the processor so that you can directly attach a water block to it for more efficient cooling. This practice is widespread among enthusiasts and overclockers, as they could get the most performance out of these chips and break world records. Furthermore, Intel’s Alder Lake and Raptor Lake series chips are so notorious for running hot that delidding has become quite common for those processors.

However, this act is quite dangerous, and you could destroy your processor if you make one wrong move. One of the first Ryzen 9000 processors was killed this way when its I/O die cracked during the delidding process. But to break the world record, you must delid your current CPU. It’s the risk you must take to squeeze every ounce of performance.

So, to help fellow enthusiasts, some manufacturers, like EKWB and even der8auer (in partnership with Thermal Grizzly), have built delidders to make the process safer and easier. This could reduce the chance that you’ll damage your CPU. Note that you will forfeit your processor’s warranty when you do this, but that is just the price if you want the best possible speed from your chip.

Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

  • Steve Nord_
    Surface Mount ...Die? Discrete (electronic components?) Dolmen? Derrida? Nevermind you called it a CPU rather than a processor so that you're disassembling a -unit-, or topping the lid with a bit of a certain solder ball/flux formula and 4 bimetal thermocouples, you can't dial in what a tight melty force measures? De-lid with max awkwardness!
    Reply
  • The Historical Fidelity
    With Intel in a bad spot these days, I think them creating a new product series selling extreme enthusiast segment processors that come from the factory without heat spreaders for a premium would be a smart move. The warranty would reflect that physical damage to the die from user error would not be covered.
    Reply
  • YSCCC
    With the heat appraently not an issue to Arrow Lake as the Alder Lake to Raptor Lake genearations, how about not delidding them at all? I don't even see why would you want to delid that except for LN2 overclock attempts..
    Reply
  • rluker5
    YSCCC said:
    With the heat appraently not an issue to Arrow Lake as the Alder Lake to Raptor Lake genearations, how about not delidding them at all? I don't even see why would you want to delid that except for LN2 overclock attempts..
    Also with that TSMC style hard clock limit, what are you going to gain? 16MHz?
    Reply
  • bill001g
    "So, to help fellow enthusiasts, some manufacturers, like EKWB and even der8auer (in partnership with Thermal Grizzly), have built delidders to make the process safer and easier."

    Who is writing this stuff. This line almost looks like a AI took some data and attempted to rephrase it. I am pretty sure der8auer (ie roman) actually owns thermal grizzle, I though it was a 50-50 thing with another guy. EKWB I think licensed the ability to put the der8auer logo on their delidder but that has been revoked with all the stuff going on with EKWB. I seriously doubt EKWB has a delidder for the new intel cpu. Last I saw they have all their bank accounts frozen and their main design people have left because they were not getting paid. Highly unlikely they had the money to develope a new product.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Way better lap the cpu to try destroy it with heat... My heatsink here is lapped when sit on the lga 1700 only touch the sides of the cpu...
    Reply
  • Guardians Bane
    YSCCC said:
    With the heat appraently not an issue to Arrow Lake as the Alder Lake to Raptor Lake genearations, how about not delidding them at all? I don't even see why would you want to delid that except for LN2 overclock attempts..
    Hobbys and just people wanting to do everything possible to get as much performance as they can.
    Reply