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Is the Ivybridge TIM a reliability issue?

Skree

Skree

Skree

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forgetting entirely overclocking for a while, is the TIM between the cores and the IHS on ivybridge going to become a reliability issue in the long term as the TIM degrades? i tend to use my hardware until it dies or it gets upgraded and put into another system where it stays until it is so old and slow it struggles to run even basic tasks

Ain't cutting an IHS off to replace the TIM, but i don't want a chip where the temperatures increase regardless of load as the chip gets older just because intel cheaped out on the TIM.. i was ready to pull the trigger on an i7 3770k or i5 3570k build but now i'm really not sure..

really put me off ivybridge this has, considering its cost.. i do need a new pc but now i'm really not sure IB is the way for me

:confused:
 
Should last a good 8 years at the very least. Even if it did degrade, it would still be fine. Without over clocking the ivys run quite cool.
 
Yeah, i was trying to decide whether or not the HT on the 3770k would mean it would last longer as a usable CPU for everyday tasks and/or games.. and if it will.. is the price difference worth it?. Considering the (cheaper) IB xeon and abandoning iGPU and accepting no overclock based on IB overclocking temperatures but i haven't really read anything about the IB xeon so i have no idea if it's suitable for me or even as good as the mainstream IBs
Probably end up getting a 3570k though as spending 3770k money on a product which is, to me, inherently flawed because of the TIM/IHS combo (still love/miss the old direct die chips) but i don't want to open that debate in another thread

This whole TIM issue makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth getting a super cheap AMD stopgap to replace the really struggling, and probably by now not far from failing absolute dinosaur i'm using at the moment and waiting till haswell to see what they do with that or even waiting to see if they adopt DDR4 anytime soon and getting the new tech
 
It's stupid that Intel didn't just sell the 'K' parts without a heatspreader like they do the mobile parts, they could have just stuck a shim around the edge of the chip if they wanted to prevent damage, something like what we had in the old Athlon XP days and what current AMD GPU's have:
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...iews/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review.html

I'm also surpised that places like OCUK haven't designed a shim of their own (it's basically a metal square with a hole in the middle) and don't offer a delidding service, OCUK used to be all about doing stuff like that but nowadays all they seem to do is slap premiums on things for a lazy profit (currently looking at £180 FX8350).
 
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depends what chip you get,some are stinkers and some are pretty good temp wise,probably helps being sealed(ihs) the air isnt going to get to the tm and degrade it so much

"life's like a box of intel chips!!!, you never now what your gonna get!!"
 
mmj_uk said:
I'm also surpised that places like OCUK haven't designed a shim of their own (it's basically a metal square with a hole in the middle) and don't offer a delidding service, OCUK used to be all about doing stuff like that but nowadays all they seem to do is slap premiums on things for a lazy profit (currently looking at £180 FX8350).
Click to expand...

I imagine the premium they would have to charge to cover the man hours required to do it in any meaningful quantities and also to cover the loss of any chips they didn't survive it wouldn't make it worth the hassle.
 
it's funny this shim vs crushed core discussion because i've got 2 of the old athlon XPs here, an XP-M and a spare XP2100.. both have been watercooled, both have had heatsinks fitted and removed inside cramped cases many times.. had a thunderbird athlon, couple of spitfire and morgan core durons, and a p3 coppermine and have never cracked a core, never had a shim either, in fact i seem to remember lots of people saying shims were for newbs and the terminally paranoid.. even battered the heatsink about on the XP2100 screwing a fan into and off the heatsink whilst on the chip. I suppose there's a first time for everything though and it'd be my luck to delid my chip successfully, get pk-1 on it and then crack the core trying to fit a heatsink without the retention bracket on the mobo and kill a 3770k and then myself :D

i'm quite surprised ocuk or someone else isn't manufacturing a shim for these for the people who do delid but i'm not surprised ocuk don't delid them for people for the reasons mentioned by tom e. i seem to remember though that people had varying luck with shims back in the day also

hmm.. better hope i dont get a stinker of a chip
 
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I vaguely remember people back in the day would sometimes damage the corners of the die if they didn't mount the heatsink with equal pressure, it was more a peace of mind thing mostly.

I think Ivy Bridge would need a shim to put some pressure on the chip though, the socket pushes down on the heatspreader iirc.
 
Skree said:
it's funny this shim vs crushed core discussion because i've got 2 of the old athlon XPs here, an XP-M and a spare XP2100.. both have been watercooled, both have had heatsinks fitted and removed inside cramped cases many times.. had a thunderbird athlon, couple of spitfire and morgan core durons, and a p3 coppermine and have never cracked a core, never had a shim either, in fact i seem to remember lots of people saying shims were for newbs and the terminally paranoid.. even battered the heatsink about on the XP2100 screwing a fan into and off the heatsink whilst on the chip. I suppose there's a first time for everything though and it'd be my luck to delid my chip successfully, get pk-1 on it and then crack the core trying to fit a heatsink without the retention bracket on the mobo and kill a 3770k and then myself :D

i'm quite surprised ocuk or someone else isn't manufacturing a shim for these for the people who do delid but i'm not surprised ocuk don't delid them for people for the reasons mentioned by tom e. i seem to remember though that people had varying luck with shims back in the day also

hmm.. better hope i dont get a stinker of a chip
Click to expand...

Just as a reminder the socket A AMD chips had hard rubber pads in the 4 corners to help keep the heatsink on straight ;)
 
did think about making my own shim but i don't trust my digital calliper to be that accurate and the idea of removing the IHS.. i did consider it a bit but nah too easy to kill the chip, too expensive a chip to kill - i'm one of the people that doesn't have the money to replace a chip just like that in fact i can't really afford more than an i3 i'm making sacrifices to save up for i5 or 7.. this is also why the TIM thing has really made me consider whether IB is for me. I expect haswell to be just the same as IB they're doing this because they can.. reminds me of back in the day when intel locked multipliers for the first time because people were overclocking old chips and getting significantly higher performance than the new chips

edit: i dont think my XP-M thoroughbred has the 4 hard rubber pads.. hard to say because that's what i'm using now (believe it or not) so it's behind a heatsink. The 2100 palomino core has them for sure

I'm narrowing down the potential specs, at least i've managed to rule out the 3770k, that's too expensive to pay for a chip less than perfect.. going to have to be a 3570k methinks if i dont just stopgap this old thing with a AII X3 455 or something
 
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Regarding the shims or pads for the older amd chips, the amd chips has pins that fit in a socket and then a latch comes down to make correct contact, thing is with intel's new socket is the pins are the socket so the chip needs the pressure from the locking mechanism to make good contact with the cpu's contact pads.
 
thanks folks, this thread helped me pull the trigger on buying a this week only i5 3570k. It was always the CPU i should have bought. Only got the CPU, need a whole new rig and will be some weeks before i get even a basic setup sorted but 162 quid delivered pushed it to buyable for me
 
Yeah, quite an upgrade from XP-M athlon @ 2ghz :D just hope i get a sweet one, this rig is going to be a belter.. going in a new direction for me, micro atx and quiet rather than ATX and not quiet. Hopefully with this CPU i can squeeze something like a 7850 in without sending temps too mental, something I couldn't have done with a modern AMD
 
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