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Ever since Intel switched away from using solder to a thermal interface material on its desktop CPUs, enthusiasts have been asking the visitor to opposite that decision — and occasionally cracking the integrated oestrus spreader off the CPU to remove Intel's thermal interface fabric (TIM) and substitute their own. Earlier this summer we saw leaked slides implying that the at least some of Intel's upcoming ninth Generation CPUs will employ solder, not paste, but didn't have confirmation of that decision. New statements from Eurocom, however, accept put paid to the rumor.

Overclockers3D contacted the company, which confirmed that at least 2 chips in the ninth Generation family, the Core i9-9900K and Core i7-9700K will employ solder rather than a TIM. The company states:

New Intel i9-9900K and i7-9700K CPUs are coming with gilt soldered TIM/IHS to the CPU die. This should help manage the temperatures of the higher-clocked CPUs and will also help with achieving higher overclocked frequencies. Our Sky "C" super-laptops are ready for 9900K /9700K.

The Cadre i5-9600K is not mentioned and may utilize a TIM. If it does, information technology would exist a pregnant shift for Intel. Typically, the visitor has deployed a TIM or not-deployed i across an entire product family unit rather than reserving it for specific chips. There are, nonetheless, a few reasons why Intel might accept this tactic. First, it would reduce the cost of switching out the TIM for solder, since solder is significantly more expensive. Second, it would give the company'southward CPUsSEEAMAZON_ET_135 See Amazon ET commerce a better gamble of hitting their ultra-high clock rates. The Cadre i7-9700K and 9900K supposedly take heave frequencies of 5GHz and 4.9GHz respectively, while the Core i5-9600K may top out at iv.6GHz.

That 300MHz gap may non seem like much, but it's entirely possible the deviation is larger than information technology appears mathematically. CPU power consumption tends to rise linearly with clock, but voltage increases bulldoze power consumption much more sharply. In real-world scenarios, of course, voltage and frequency shift together and simultaneously. Once outside of the "sweet spot" for any given part, the bend bends upwards sharply. The graph below compares power consumption and power consumption for ii older Intel CPUs — the Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) and the Core i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge).

Clock-vs-Frequency

IVB improved on Sandy Bridge at lower clocks, but you lot can see how the IVB bend is ultimately steeper than the SNB variant. This tendency has connected with each CPU generation.

But full CPU power consumption is as well impacted by temperature, and this is where the employ of solder versus thermal paste comes into play. The thermal conductivity of thermal paste, outside of exotic compounds that Intel doesn't use, is typically measured around v-10 W/(chiliad*K). Indium, the dominant compound in about CPU solder (for reasons you can read nigh in an excellent guide to CPU soldering by overclocker Der8auer) has a thermal conductivity of 81.8 Westward/(1000*One thousand).

Because hotter transistors draw more power, using a TIM instead of thermal paste can lead to heat being trapped on the die, which ways the transistors in question require more voltage to switch properly at top speed, which means they'll generate more oestrus, which means they'll demand more voltage to switch properly at top speed, which ways they'll… you get the motion picture. There are practical limits to how much we tin can accommodate these issues; the amount of rut that tin move out of the CPU is fundamentally limited by the materials used in its structure and CPUs aren't really all that great at moving oestrus out of hot spots in the first place (if they were, hot spot germination wouldn't exist the problem that information technology is today).

Early on information suggests Intel's new Core i7 and Core i9 chips may have some power to push above 5GHz, but I wouldn't buy either scrap expecting huge overclocking returns unless you regularly run at to the lowest degree a stage change unit of measurement (single-stage freon tin take a CPU down to ~-50C). While moving to solder should amend Intel'south temperature and thermals, we look the company has already tapped most of the flake's overhead by increasing the maximum heave clock. Also, despite the mention of gilt in the Eurocom annotation, using gold as an alloy for CPU soldering is common. It'due south used as a layer between both the CPU die and the solder canvass and so between the solder sheet and the bottom surface of the integrated heat spreader (IHS).

At present Read: Report Claims Core i9-9900K Will Finally Use Solder, Intel CPU Shortages Hit Whiskey Lake, and Upcoming Core i7-9700K Overclocked to v.3GHz on Air