Intel play down Alder Lake CPU bending, “strongly recommend against” socket mods

rockpapershotgun.com:

Some of Intel’s 12th Gen Alder Lake processors are among the best gaming CPUs you can buy, but certain owners have noticed a seemingly worrisome trend: their LGA 1700 motherboard socket puts so much pressure on the chip that its IHS (integrated heat spreader, the big grey bit on top) starts to bend. This isn’t so much a concern for the CPU’s structural integrity as it is a cooling issue, as a non-flat IHS will struggle to transfer heat to the CPU cooler plate as effectivity.

In a statement to Tom’s Hardware, however, an Intel spokesperson has essentially said it’s not as bad as it sounds. The statement does acknowledge the warping (or “deflection”, to use Intel’s more engineer-y term), but says there’s no evidence thus far to suggest it drives load temperatures up to unsafe levels.

The statement reads: “We have not received reports of 12th Gen Intel Core processors running outside of specifications due to changes to the integrated heat spreader (IHS). Our internal data show that the IHS on 12th Gen desktop processors may have slight deflection after installation in the socket. Such minor deflection is expected and does not cause the processor to run outside of specifications.”

In other words, the weird flexes of Alder Lake CPUs won’t make them run above their specified 100°c maximum. Third-party reports suggest the issue can add up to 5°c to normal temps, so if – for example – your Core i9-12900K was already running at 100°c before warping affected the cooling effectiveness, the CPU would downclock itself to maintain 100°c instead of creeping up to 105°c.

The extent to which this is a ‘big deal’ is probably open to, uh, interpretation. Under normal, non-overclocked use, the Alder Lake chips I’ve tested will only