The IC7-MAX3 did do something that we have never seen before. If you have noticed, we have used square blocks of plastic foam to elevate our boards for years now while we are testing them. The IC7-MAX3 got so hot that it actually melted the plastic block into a liquid form.
The one thing that bothers me most that we have yet to see and will not be seeing for a while is the toll that will be taken on these motherboards by having to deal with all of this heat. It was not uncommon for us to see capacitors at 235F. That is certainly enough to burn you quite quickly. How are those capacitors and other motherboard components going to react to being baked for days at a time...or better yet, months at a time. I have a gut feeling that we are going to see a lot of Prescott related failures on the current motherboards that are in the market even if they are "Prescott Ready."