With regards to the thermal cycling. The stresses needed to fracture the solder is directly proportional to the temp delta. In the paper above , its 180 degrees Celsius for the cycle range. Below a critical temperature delta, most likely there will be no fractures as the thermal stress never exceeds the fracture strength of the material or of the bonds.I wish people would start reading a bit,from the link above that explains it all.
On small dies (what you call cheapo for AMD) neither intel or amd uses solder for this reason.
Intel's 4/8 cpus were less then half the size of the 8 core FX series while doing the same work,the risk is too high to use solder on such small surfaces because the heat can't spread evenly.
Now intel's 8 core has enough die area so they will use solder,it's that simple.
Sauce:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5st41v/speculation_i_tried_to_make_this_little/
No one is bashing Intel for using solder. I don't see where you got that idea. In my case, I'm bashing all the posters who spent the last year ridiculing those of us, who were bashing Intel for NOT using solder on their high end CPUs, They claimed all sort of technical reasons why solder is bad, and now have gone silent.
You do know that people in labs don't have 4-5 years time to test something right?
They will often accelerate processes that would otherwise take too long.
I'm not going to get into an argument about each and every single CPU.
It seems you don't know that De8auer himself delidded a Ryzen CPU and found only a slight improvement, ~ 4 Celsius.It's a double edged sword. I mean if the soldered IHS is very close to keeping the die cool producing results similar to delidded cpus with gallium, etc. then sure I'm all for it. However if the results are still rather mediocre then you're stuck with it as delidding a soldered IHS is nearly impossible for the hobbyist and the risk isn't worth it.
The physical problems are the same, this is just an engineering/accounting tradeoff between RMA rates and performance. Now that AMD provides effective competition again, delivering optimal performance for the top mainstream SKUs has become a higher priority than minimizing RMA rates, because this will optimize Intel profits.Well apparently Intel thinks solder now does not have that problem,as they are soldering their K series chips,which consume the most power of the consumer line,which by extension will cause more issues with thermal cycling if its true.
If AMD had used TIM on Ryzen and consequently lost 10%(?) of overclocking headroom, with no single chip hitting even 4 GHz without delidding, how successful would Ryzen have been? Yeah, right. Basically the same tradeoff as for Intel – accept higher per-unit cost as well as RMA rates, make up for it with far more sales. Profit maximization.AMD apparently does not agree as all their Ryzen CPUs,and the Threadripper CPUs are all soldered and their cheapo CPUs don't have it. AMD has far less leeway for increased RMA rates than Intel due to their financial situation anyway - they should be using thermal compound as their margins are lower.
Yeah well. The same worries people had when Intel switched from solder to TIM – "OMG what if it dries up after a few years?!?!". People will always find something to worry.Also,people are literally bashing Intel for using solder now and now trying to spread fear that the CPUs are more likely to fail. So are people saying we should buy a Core i7 8700K instead of a Core i7 9700K,since the solder "might" cause more problems?? People worry too much - I hate to think how many of you would have felt about pencil mods and old Athlons which would catch fire if the cooler failed!
Lets hope so. After all these years of people griping about TIM, will be interesting to see how much difference solder actually makes. My bet is really not that much.
He is an extreme overclocker. He is measuring a 180C delta.
Who cares whether the decision to not use solder was to save $ in the BoM or to save $ by reducing RMA rates. In the end, it was all about $. It was the wrong decision for an enthusiast product, and correctly panned by the enthusiast community.
They made the right choice by re-introducing solder for the enthusiast parts.
What are you talking about? Solder's melting point is far higher than the Tj. max of the CPU. The solder isn't changing state.
I believe the argument you are trying to make is about micro fractures (almost like cold solder joints) in the solder causing damage to the die. I don't think this argument has any merit though as there hasn't been any proof that soldered chips have a shorter life span. In fact it seems more to the contrary; I've had an Athlon 64 X2 (Brisbane) essentially break on me because the paste dried up and caused the temperatures to sky rocket no matter what cooling was used. It wasn't until I delided the CPU and used it bare die that the temperatures returned to normal.
At the end of the day it's all about cost just as it's always been. Intel has been using paste for it's CPUs for a long time, much longer than Ivy bridge. For example, a Core 2 Duo E7200 uses paste but a Core 2 Duo E8200 is soldered. It obviously wasn't something technical that caused Intel to use paste for the E7200, it was price as they're almost the same exact chips.
I wish people would start reading a bit,from the link above that explains it all.
On small dies (what you call cheapo for AMD) neither intel or amd uses solder for this reason.
Intel's 4/8 cpus were less then half the size of the 8 core FX series while doing the same work,the risk is too high to use solder on such small surfaces because the heat can't spread evenly.
Now intel's 8 core has enough die area so they will use solder,it's that simple.
Sauce:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/5st41v/speculation_i_tried_to_make_this_little/
You will have a hard time arguing with data, if a study provides proof that microfractures be a thing then either discount the authors of said study, the study it self, or get with the program. Getting into how duos were soldered or not, back in the day, is specifically not helpful to current state of affairs.
But he present it another data point, in the his case why small core2duo soldered and the study was flawed, it's only true for extreme condition in this case the study use extreme Delta temperature.
Because it has to be redone every couple of years.Question, why don't they use liquid metal anyway? Must be cheaper than solder using exotic metals.
while i am slightly happier (not in the market for a CPU for the foreseeable future), i will not be "genuinely" happy until they also cut the IGP from enthusiast chips.Let the people like us who are genuinely happy Intel is doing this,be happy instead of trying to be spoilsports!!
while i am slightly happier (not in the market for a CPU for the foreseeable future), i will not be "genuinely" happy until they also cut the IGP from enthusiast chips.
Ah, cheers.Because it has to be redone every couple of years.
Don't know what it would have been with Ryzen, but the loss in overclocking headroom is far, far less than 10% with Skylake. Think about it, most coffee lake cpus can reach 4.8, usually 5ghz. 10% additional from that would be another 0.5 ghz. There is no way simply changing to solder would allow coming even close to that, no way. Now granted, cooling is better, but actual overclocking headroom is what, only .2ghz or so?The physical problems are the same, this is just an engineering/accounting tradeoff between RMA rates and performance. Now that AMD provides effective competition again, delivering optimal performance for the top mainstream SKUs has become a higher priority than minimizing RMA rates, because this will optimize Intel profits.
If AMD had used TIM on Ryzen and consequently lost 10%(?) of overclocking headroom, with no single chip hitting even 4 GHz without delidding, how successful would Ryzen have been? Yeah, right. Basically the same tradeoff as for Intel – accept higher per-unit cost as well as RMA rates, make up for it with far more sales. Profit maximization.
Yeah well. The same worries people had when Intel switched from solder to TIM – "OMG what if it dries up after a few years?!?!". People will always find something to worry.
Don't know what it would have been with Ryzen, but the loss in overclocking headroom is far, far less than 10% with Skylake. Think about it, most coffee lake cpus can reach 4.8, usually 5ghz. 10% additional from that would be another 0.5 ghz. There is no way simply changing to solder would allow coming even close to that, no way. Now granted, cooling is better, but actual overclocking headroom is what, only .2ghz or so?
It seems you don't know that De8auer himself delidded a Ryzen CPU and found only a slight improvement, ~ 4 Celsius.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEUG9d4Mjug
But this is a discussion about Intel not AMD.
If you want the best results, don't care about cost why even deal with a heatspreader and just engineer your own direct die contact block and be done with it?
And 4C is not what I'd consider slight if you're pushing things to the very edge! Anyone who is delidding chips isn't your typical OC for 24/7 100% load person that's looking to maximize throughput and have longevity and stability suitable for heavy, continuous workloads.