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Intel to launch 6 core Coffee Lake-S CPUs & Z370 chipset 5 October 2017

Does anyone know if Covfefe lake 6 core 12 thread will be soldered or still paste? I don't much fancy overclocking 6 cores to 5Ghz with Intel paste. Nor do I want to delid and ruin my warranty on a brand new chip.~
Honestly this will be the deciding factor for me between R7 1700 and 8700K
 
No I agree certainly HEDT and above should be but Skylake x wasn't, maybe they are just trying to save cash at the expense of the customer?

I suppose with the high end xeons the profits are that much greater for them, plus the die sizes are also much bigger than mainstream.
 
I think I have found an article that sums up why Intel are no longer using solder on mainstream chips. http://overclocking.guide/the-truth-about-cpu-soldering/

Whenever I read sentences like “What a ripoff – Intel doesn’t even solder a 300 USD CPU” or “Why does intel save 2 USD on soldering” I’m thinking

Stop hating on Intel. Intel has some of the best engineers in the world when it comes to metallurgy. They know exactly what they are doing and the reason for conventional thermal paste in recent desktop CPUs is not as simple as it seems.

Micro cracks in solder preforms can damage the CPU permanently after a certain amount of thermal cycles and time. Conventional thermal paste doesn’t perform as good as the solder preform but it should have a longer durability – especially for small size DIE CPUs.

Thinking about the ecology it makes sense to use conventional thermal paste. Gold and indium are rare and expensive materials. Mining of these materials is complex and in addition it’s polluting.

After soldering one of my 6700K CPUs I can tell it’s a pretty complex process. I’m still working on it and trying to make it available for extreme overclockers. However, I doubt that Intel will come back with soldered “small DIE CPUs”. Skylake works great even with normal thermal paste so I see no reason why Intel should/would change anything here.
Click to expand...
 
Doobedoo said:
I think I have found an article that sums up why Intel are no longer using solder on mainstream chips. http://overclocking.guide/the-truth-about-cpu-soldering/
Click to expand...

AMD uses a low power 1ST generation 14NM finfet process which was made for mobile phones - yet how come they are using solder?? The chip is 189mm2.

BW-E uses a second generation 14nm finfet process but also used solder,and its superior to what AMD is using,and Intel has far more experience with finfets than GF or Samsung.

The fact is that TIM is much easier and cheaper to use than solder,which uses expensive material like Indium,and the fact they CBA to even try and make it work,points to cost cutting in that area.

Why the heck should us as enthusiasts,be having to invalidate our warranties on CPUs Intel advertises for "overclocking",etc and then spend more on cooling solutions since they are too cheap to bother to engineer a proper IHS and thermal interface between the chip and the IHS?

The fact the CPU is running at higher temperatures alone will have an effect on its lifespan.

Plus look at the fact they use cheap and crappy stock coolers,which are getting tinier and tinier with each generation,and CBA even to add one to the K series CPUs.

If AMD can include some of the best stock coolers ever made,and still sell their CPUs at a lower price than Intel,then WTF is Intel smoking?? AMD is meant to be the "technically inferior" company if you listen to all the Intel blurb and they have a fraction of the R and D budget,and still find a way to package their CPUs better it appears.

Instead Intel wastes all that money buying antivirus companies for over $10 billion and other weird purchases. They used billions of the profits from the desktop to fund their foray into tablets - read about Intel contra-revenue. They were literally giving away Atom chips for next to nothing,and this is why they CBA spending the extra money,since every dollar saved is considered more important for stuff like that.
 
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CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
AMD uses a low power 1ST generation 14NM finfet process which was made for mobile phones, - yet how come they are using solder?? The chip is 189mm2.

BW-E uses a second generation 14nm finfet process but also used solder,and its superior to what AMD is using,and Intel has far more experience with finfets than GF or Samsung.

The fact is solder is much easier and cheaper to use than solder,which uses expensive material like Indium,and the fact they CBA to even try and make it works,points to cost cutting in that area.

Why the heck should us as enthusiasts,be having to invalidate our warranties on CPUs Intel advertises as for "overclocking",etc and then spending more on cooling solutions since they are too cheap to bother to engineer a proper IHS and thermal interface between the chip and the IHS.

The fact the CPU is running at higher temperatures alone will have an effect on its lifespan.

Plus look at the fact they use cheap and crappy stock coolers,which are getting tinier and tinier with each generation.

If AMD can include some of the best stock coolers ever made,and still sell their CPUs at a lower price than Intel,then WTF is Intel smoking?? AMD is meant to be the "technically inferior" company if you listen to all the Intel blurb and they have a fraction of the R and D budget.
Click to expand...

With my limited perspective I can only imagine that Amd do it because they achieve much higher yields with Zen than Intel due to their unique process. Perhaps it's worth it for Amd as it's a useful marketing tool for them to say "look we can solder our cpu's and still sell them for cheaper"

I would agree and also that article does site that Iridium, which is needed to solder silicone and copper together is very expensive to produce and buy.

So between it potentially causing small die stress fractures (cost) and buying the raw materials (cost) you an be sure that ultimately Intel is protecting their bottom line. You could excuse that for mainsteam but not hedt, that is pretty unacceptable really, but then again perhaps it's a decision Intel where kind of forced into due to the success of zen and subsequently threadripper. Hence why they had to change their line up of Skylake X from 10c to 18c which means that the yields will be much lower than Amds.

Ultimately it's up to the consumers to decide if it's acceptable or not, if Intel still sells them in bucket loads then they have been validated by the consumers, so going forward that is what they will be getting. Don't like it then don't buy it, it's that simple.
 
Doobedoo said:
I think I have found an article that sums up why Intel are no longer using solder on mainstream chips. http://overclocking.guide/the-truth-about-cpu-soldering/
Click to expand...

Whenever I read sentences like “What a ripoff – Intel doesn’t even solder a 300 USD CPU” or “Why does intel save 2 USD on soldering” I’m thinking

Stop hating on Intel. Intel has some of the best engineers in the world when it comes to metallurgy. They know exactly what they are doing and the reason for conventional thermal paste in recent desktop CPUs is not as simple as it seems.

Micro cracks in solder preforms can damage the CPU permanently after a certain amount of thermal cycles and time. Conventional thermal paste doesn’t perform as good as the solder preform but it should have a longer durability – especially for small size DIE CPUs.

Thinking about the ecology it makes sense to use conventional thermal paste. Gold and indium are rare and expensive materials. Mining of these materials is complex and in addition it’s polluting.

After soldering one of my 6700K CPUs I can tell it’s a pretty complex process. I’m still working on it and trying to make it available for extreme overclockers. However, I doubt that Intel will come back with soldered “small DIE CPUs”. Skylake works great even with normal thermal paste so I see no reason why Intel should/would change anything here.
Click to expand...

Maybe AMD just has better engineers? hu?
 
Doobedoo said:
With my limited perspective I can only imagine that Amd do it because they achieve much higher yields with Zen than Intel due to their unique process. Perhaps it's worth it for Amd as it's a useful marketing tool for them to say "look we can solder our cpu's and still sell them for cheaper"

I would agree and also that article does site that Iridium, which is needed to solder silicone and copper together is very expensive to produce and buy.

So between it potentially causing small die stress fractures (cost) and buying the raw materials (cost) you an be sure that ultimately Intel is protecting their bottom line. You could excuse that for mainsteam but not hedt, that is pretty unacceptable really, but then again perhaps it's a decision Intel where kind of forced into due to the success of zen and subsequently threadripper. Hence why they had to change their line up of Skylake X from 10c to 18c which means that the yields will be much lower than Amds.

Ultimately it's up to the consumers to decide if it's acceptable or not, if Intel still sells them in bucket loads then they have been validated by the consumers so going forward that is what they will be getting. Don't like it then don't buy it, it's that simple.
Click to expand...

I think its all about the bottom line. Consider this - the Intel laptop CPUs are the same chips as the consumer desktop ones,but they usually lack an IHS,ie,the cooler is attached directly to the chip,via some TIM,as it means the Z height of the package and cooling solution is lower,which you need in laptops.

In the end some clever spark has realised instead of having two very different lines for packaging laptop and desktop CPUs,they could combines aspects of it to save money since they can develop one kind of thermal interface material for both lines. Then instead of compensating for the thermal issues it causes with a better stock cooler,Intel just makes them worse and worse.

A lot of these CPUs will be running on the stock cooling,and higher temperatures will actually be more of a worry,as it can potentially cause problems,but why should Intel care?? As long as there is no issue within the warranty period its all good for them.
 
CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I think its all about the bottom line. Consider this - the Intel laptop CPUs are the same chips as the consumer desktop ones,but they usually lack an IHS,ie,the cooler is attached directly to the chip,via some TIM,as it means the Z height of the package and cooling solution is lower,which you need in laptops.

In the end some clever spark has realised instead of having two very different lines for packaging laptop and desktop CPUs,they could combines aspects of it to save money since they can develop one kind of thermal interface material for both lines. Then instead of compensating for the thermal issues it causes with a better stock cooler,Intel just makes them worse and worse.

A lot of these CPUs will be running on the stock cooling,and higher temperatures will actually be more of a worry,as it can potentially cause problems,but why should Intel care?? As long as there is no issue within the warranty period its all good for them.
Click to expand...

I agree I think it's a financial decision above all else.

Think about it. They are still producing what they have claimed to produced i.e xcore chips at x base frequency with x turbo frequency with x tdp and thermal package guaranteed for x amount of years. They don't need to offer anything outside of that agreement, so if johnny wants to reduce the temps to what they would be if they have soldered them, then he has to occur the cost to do such a thing, he also has to run the risk of invalidating his warranty or damaging his cpu.

Intel doesn't need to care they have done what they set out to do and sold the product, the only thing you can do is decide that this is not acceptable and choose to vote with your wallet. Ultimately though Intel will still sell loads of these cpu's to oem's and those who wouldn't know the difference between soldered and tim'd.

I can't help but think back to the other thread floating around on here based on the video done by adoredtv. ;)
 
DragonQ said:
That really isn't a summary of why they're doing it at all, it just reads like a justification of it. If you think Intel are doing it because mining gold is polluting you're just not living on this planet.
Click to expand...
Agree. That wasn't written by engineers. It was written by a marketing team who were told to come up with something to combat the thermal paste hate.
 
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