Small improvements in Alder Lake’s cooling can drop CPU temperature by 5°C

by ·

Intel’s 12th-generation Core processor interface has changed from LGA 1200 to LGA 1700, the shape of the CPU has also changed from a square to a rectangle, and the locking method is also different from before. In fact, when we tested it, we found that the lock of the LGA 1700 is significantly more stressed than the LGA 1200, but we did not expect it to bend the CPU and affect the cooling effect.

igorslab found this problem during the test and gave an improvement method. Compared with the previous LGA 1200 socket, the LGA 1700 socket is larger and the pressure of the lock is greater, but the fixing method of the CPU is the same, the force point is still on the winglets on the two sides in the center of the CPU, in fact, the slot of the LGA 2066 is larger, but the stress points are on the four corners of the CPU, which is much more uniform than the LGA 1700 as a whole.

The result of this design is that the CPU is easier to bend. In fact, igorslab shows a CPU that has been used for hundreds of hours. From the above picture, you can see that the central PCB of the CPU is significantly bent downward.

The CPU top cover also has this problem, but the top cover itself may have a certain curvature, not sure if this is bent, but this will inevitably affect the contact with the heat sink.

The method igorslab gave is also very simple, that is, first remove the screws from the four corners of the LGA 1700 slot. Then put an M4 washer on the four screw positions, which can effectively reduce the pressure of the socket top cover on the CPU. igorslab tried four different thickness washers, all of which effectively lowered the temperature of the CPU. The thickest one was 1.3mm, and the 1.8mm washer was too thick to screw the screws.

igorslab used a Core i9-12900K with all E-Core turned off and AVX-512 disabled for testing, using a split water cooling, the water block is a CORSAIR XC7 RGB PRO LGA 1700, use the Prime95 preset Small FFT to load, run for 5 minutes, and the results are as follows:

Among the four types of spacers, the effect is the one with 1.0mm. The average temperature of the CPU core is reduced from 76.64°C to 70.88°C, and the temperature drops by 5°C. The effect of the 1.3mm spacer is similar to that of the 0.5mm and 0.8mm spacers. The effect of the film is relatively poor.
However, in fact, this improvement is not effective for all radiators. After all, some radiators have a certain arc at the bottom, but there is a significant improvement for flat-bottomed radiators.

Tags: