So they did. Reading the article does'nt make it clear what procedure they used but if you click on the link at the bottom of the article it has pictures of how they did it. Still, it would be nice to know how much difference removing the IHS altogether would make.
If you use Google Translate on the original article, it's quite easy to understand. The Japanese ---> English auto-translation has come a long way in recent years

I think results will likely vary hugely with the latter, due to the difficulty of the method and the fact that almost all coolers / heatsinks are not designed to work without an IHS, these days.
The Japanese publication has a good reputation and has been very reliable in the past, from what I can gather. If a couple more people can confirm that replacing the crappy Intel TIM yields a major improvement (and I'm sure it will), the bad publicity might force Intel to actually do something.
 
	 
  
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 *brain cogs turning*
 *brain cogs turning*
 , I was testing my over clock the other day, passed ten runs on IBT, 3-4 hours prime blend, load up BF3 and 5 minutes in and pc has hard locked up on me, loaded up again and BF3 crash's my PC again.
, I was testing my over clock the other day, passed ten runs on IBT, 3-4 hours prime blend, load up BF3 and 5 minutes in and pc has hard locked up on me, loaded up again and BF3 crash's my PC again.