Noctua not supporting TR4 socket with existing coolers.

[ubersonic]

In a shock move Noctua have announced that there will be no mounting kits for any of their existing coolers:

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/ca...r4_mounting_kits_for_their_existing_coolers/1

Personally surprised as I always thought Noctua were a stand up company and would honour their word to support future sockets on their coolers, guess they lost too much money on AM4 kits lol.

 

[Rroff]

Can't really blame them - you want a properly done cooler for TR4 not bodging something designed for a smaller footprint into working.

 

[ubersonic]

Can't really blame them - you want a properly done cooler for TR4 not bodging something designed for a smaller footprint into working.

It doesn't make a difference (well, not in whole numbers of celsius anyway) if the heatsink contact plate is slightly smaller than the die area because there's a heat spreader in between them.

 

[jaffveyda]

It doesn't make a difference (well, not in whole numbers of celsius anyway) if the heatsink contact plate is slightly smaller than the die area because there's a heat spreader in between them.

It would be weirdly looking cooler with base only touching part of the heat spreader.

 

[Minstadave]

It would be weirdly looking cooler with base only touching part of the heat spreader.

I wouldn't care if it meant not having to buy another £50 cooler. As long as it works ok.

 

[ttaskmaster]

It doesn't make a difference (well, not in whole numbers of celsius anyway) if the heatsink contact plate is slightly smaller than the die area because there's a heat spreader in between them.

It's not slightly smaller, though - Apparently it only covers 50% - "the contact surfaces of standard Noctua heatsinks would cover only about half of these heatspreaders, which would result in insufficient cooling performance."

 

[ubersonic]

It's not slightly smaller, though - Apparently it only covers 50% - "the contact surfaces of standard Noctua heatsinks would cover only about half of these heatspreaders, which would result in insufficient cooling performance."

Yeah but the heat spreader isn't the CPU is it. It's a plate that sits between the CPU die{s} and the heatsink on consumer CPUs to protect them from damage and transfer heat. The actual CPU die area measures 30x55mm, which while slightly larger to the top/bottom than the 46x46mm plate on the bottom of a D15, is only marginal (4.5mm underlap). this would be an issue if you were delidding the CPU, but due to the presence of the heatsink it will make an almost unnoticeable difference (we're talking fractions of a degree in performance loss).

 

[deFiniLoGy]

You might not care but they do.

A brand that always aim for perfection (despite the current fiasco) chose to not release a mounting kit that hurts their brand image, whether or not it would work is irrelevant to them.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Yeah but the heat spreader isn't the CPU is it. It's a plate that sits between the CPU die{s} and the heatsink on consumer CPUs to protect them from damage and transfer heat. The actual CPU die area measures 30x55mm, which while slightly larger to the top/bottom than the 46x46mm plate on the bottom of a D15, is only marginal (4.5mm underlap). this would be an issue if you were delidding the CPU, but due to the presence of the heatsink it will make an almost unnoticeable difference (we're talking fractions of a degree in performance loss).

Ah, so this is purely a money-grabbing exercise by Noctua to rip all their customers off by flogging totally unnecessary kit?
Oh well.

 

[Danny75]

Initially, am in agreement that they don't want the reviews/numbers hurting their brand image which they care a lot about, even if it's just a couple of degrees (they may have found slightly more than that in their own testing, who knows). I also note they have not announced they will no longer support any future sockets, just TR4/SP3, for that reason.

 

[Avalon]

If you are dropping the cash on a TR4 set-up, why should you want anything other than a decent cooler designed and made for the job, much less get bent out of shape that a company who values its reputation won't sell you an adapter kit that won't offer optimum cooling. They'd get slaughtered if they did and it didn't perform, so why would they in an industry that reputation is everything.

 

[EsaT]

It doesn't make a difference (well, not in whole numbers of celsius anyway) if the heatsink contact plate is slightly smaller than the die area because there's a heat spreader in between them.

Threadripper's active dies are far from each others.
Cooler covering only half of heatspreader would cover basically only half of surface of dies:
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/253416-amd-explains-threadripper-cpus-four-die-hood
Effect of that would be notable.

 

[Hotwired]

So... anyone actually in disagreement?

A threadripper rig is easily several thousand pounds so the beans are extremely small when it comes to the cpu cooler.

Noctua can't be bothered with old coolers potentially underperforming since they were made for a much smaller heatspreader than threadripper.

It would look bad if they got any kind of negative results by putting out a kit to accommodate the old coolers with undersize contact plates vs threadripper heatspreaders.

A kit would be a bodge job. They'd rather sell one with a larger contact plate from scratch and not take any risk.

Would they make more money from a new cooler vs a kit? Probably. Is that kind of money meaningful in your budget for a threadripper rig? Probably not.

 

[doyll]

None of the CPU coolers available have big enough bases to cover TR4 IHS or even just the chips. They all need to re-design existing coolers or design new coolers for TR4.

Conventional cooler bases would only cover about half of actual area of TR4 chips. If you look at TR4 you will see the 4x chips are each as big as conventional single chips and their corners create a rectangle approximately 50x28mm under a IHS approximately 65x48mm. Conventional coolers have a base approximately 40-45x40-53mm .. that is not even big enough to cover all of the chips contact surface area under the IHS.

 

[ubersonic]

Threadripper's active dies are far from each others.
Cooler covering only half of heatspreader would cover basically only half of surface of dies:

Yes but we're not talking about poxy Intel stock coolers with contact points the size of a 10p. We're talking about coolers that while incapable of covering the entire IHS can still completely the CPU die(s) (or almost completely cover them, a couple of mm underlap on rectangular dies will not effect temperatures by more than a fraction of a degree).

I just don't like being ripped off by corporations, I paid good money for my NH-D15 last year on the understanding I would be able to buy or receive mounting kits for new sockets, now I'm told if I want to use a Threadripper CPU I need to replace a cooler that's more than capable of doing the job perfectly fine >.>

 

[Danny75]

Yes but we're not talking about poxy Intel stock coolers with contact points the size of a 10p. We're talking about coolers that while incapable of covering the entire IHS can still completely the CPU die(s) (or almost completely cover them, a couple of mm underlap on rectangular dies will not effect temperatures by more than a fraction of a degree).

I just don't like being ripped off by corporations, I paid good money for my NH-D15 last year on the understanding I would be able to buy or receive mounting kits for new sockets, now I'm told if I want to use a Threadripper CPU I need to replace a cooler that's more than capable of doing the job perfectly fine >.>

You've seen that most give Noctua the benefit of the doubt - it shows they are doing things right in general.

Given their support is so good, why don't you contact them and explain your situation and why you bought the NH-D15 last year instead of something else. And see what happens. Whatever happens, you don't lose as much money from selling off a year-old Noctua cooler compared to others.

 

[EsaT]

We're talking about coolers that while incapable of covering the entire IHS can still completely the CPU die(s) (or almost completely cover them, a couple of mm underlap on rectangular dies will not effect temperatures by more than a fraction of a degree).

Did you even check those pictures?
Threadripper is huge multi die package and CPU cores aren't located under center area of heatspreader like in usual single die CPUs.
Heatsink covering only 50% of heatspreader would leave nearly half of silicon dies outside its area.

This is the size of usual desktop CPU package with its die and what's base for design of desktop heatsinks:
http://wccftech.com/delid-relid-intel-cpu-video-guide/

This is Threadripper and how big it's in relation to motherboard:
http://www.techrepublic.com/article...-challenge-intels-i9-amd-teases-threadripper/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/6huphm/gigabyte_uk_showed_this_photo_of_an_x399_mobo_on

 

[ubersonic]

Did you even check those pictures?
Threadripper is huge multi die package

Yeah, I measured everything last week to ensure my NH-D15 would be fine for cooling the 1950X I'll be cooling with it (once I've manufactured my own bracket cos Noctua suck).

 

[doyll]

I think D15 base contact surface is about 38x40mm (W x D w/ front to back airflow)
TR4 IHS is about 64x46.5mm and the 4x chips are about 50x30mm
Result:
Using D15 on TR4 leave 12x10mm of it's 4x chip surface area outside of D15 base contact area.
Noctua does not think that is good enough cooler base coverage, and I agree with them.

 

[bimbleuk]

I benefited form a LGA 2011-v3 upgrade kit so I appreciated that and a bodge kit release would not be good for the company.

Plus it may need more than just a bracket maybe a thick copper shim covering the HS to start with.