I was browsing the interwebz today (as i do almost 24/7) and I came across several articles and a couple of youtube videos of people taking the heat spreader and changing the TIM on the chip to acheive better temps and in turn higher overclocks. I thought it was just bullshit until i saw the results. Some were achieving 10-15 degrees decrease in temps during load, and the higher the OC the greater the difference in temps over the stock TIM were.
What I'm wondering is what everyone else thinks of this? Is it worth it? Has anyone done it? I was thinking about buying another 2600k because of the temp issues but if this solves it I just may go with the 3770k and try this method. IMHO I think it's worth the risk.
I know a few people personally who have done it and got allot better temps.
It seems the reason these new 28nm chips get really hot is not because the transistors are too close together (AMD and Nvidia GPU's are cooler not hotter and are of similar transistor density)
But because usually intel and most chip companies use solder to connect the chip to the heatspreader, in this case with IvyBridge for some strange reason they decided to use TIM instead..... and not very good TIM at that.
What many people are doing is taking the heat spreader off, shaving down the base of it a little so it sits slightly more pressed up to the chip, and replacing better TIM. can improve temps by up to 15C and more.
this all makes sense, because Ivy Bridge isnt hot when its not being pushed. Just imagine you have a heatsink that isnt seated properly, it is ok and pretty cool up untill it gets to a certain temperature and then it goes very high suddenly.
This is what IB is doing, its not gradually getting hotter, its suddenly shoots up in temps like it has poor thermal conductivity with the heatsink.
the temps were really the killer for me. i was actually looking forward to IB even tho i have a SB because of the added features. i like what they're doing with z77. it makes it a lot easier to choose a board based on specs rather than what it supports and doesn't support i.e. h61, h67, p67, z68. another thing i like with z77 is the pcie 3.0. i know you won;t use that much bandwidth but due to the pcie lane bandwidth limitations of IB you can populate a graphics card in a 4x slot and have it running at theoretical 8x bandwidth. so tri sli may be capable in theory which is something i may do in the future. i may end up buying an IB cpu after all and trying this. i may make a video too and post :) still working on getting that xbox 360 pc mod together too :)
Yeh it is a shame, its a poor mistake on Intels part.
Treu about PCI3, it does come to use when you add more than 2 GPU's.
I'm waiting on my 3770k to arrive. I think i may give this a try... I would have gotten a sandy bridge CPU but Im coming from an AMD 5000+. Wanted the latest and greatest for once. Silly Intel. This is what happens when there is no real competition.