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.

 

[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.

 

[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).

 

[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 >.>

 

[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).

 

[ubersonic]

Don't think too hard about the value of the hardware you're risking, focus on the quest.

Yes, I'm sure a cooler capable of easily handling 220w CPUs will magically start struggling with a 180w one now, what a risk

 

[ubersonic]

Oh no, that's not the risk, I'm entirely sure there's enough heat dissipation even if it's below desired contact area. It'll be worse temps than the made-for-TR coolers at worst.

AMD themselves are giving out Asetek cooler brackets with the cpus to fit Asetek style AIO round cooler heads.

I'm thinking about the mechanical risks to the cpu and motherboard by home making a bracket to fit a large air cooler on.

Ahh I get you, don't worry I have all the relevant machinery and knowledge to manufacture a curved piece of metal with two holes and a threaded spike lol. It is somewhat ironic that my 10 year old Asetek cooler is supported on TR4 but not my 12 month old NH-D15 lol.

 

[ubersonic]

Not ironic at all.

You don't see the irony in a 1 year old cooler which is fully capable of handling the CPU and more not being supported yet a 10 year old cooler which doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of handling it being supported?

 

[ubersonic]

Not in an industry that development and release of new products is as fast as computer industry is.
I don't think Noctua has a crystal ball and can see what will be marketed a year from now.
If you were to design and market a new cooler today can you be sure it will work on new products a year from now?

No offense but I think you need to read the thread, the issue isn't that the NH-D15 isn't capable of working with TR4 and cooling it fine, it is. The issue is that Noctua are refusing to release fitting kits for it (despite claiming it would be supported on new CPUs for the foreseeable future) forcing us to make our own or for out another £80+ to them for a new cooler. Now this isn't an issue for me but not everyone own a metalwork shop lol.

And like I said, it's ironic that support won't be available for this cooler yet it will for my 10 year old Asetek that struggled with an overclocked Q9650 lol.

 

[ubersonic]

No offence taken .. and no offence, but the reason Noctua is not supplying TR4 mounts is because they do not think their cooler base is big enough to do a proper job on TR4 IHS.

The IHS isn't really relevant from a coverage POV, it's only there to shield the CPU from excessive pressure so idiots don't break it by overtightening the cooler (same as the four rubber bump stops on the Athlon XP). The CPU dies on TR cover a ~30x55mm area, and while the base plate on the NH-D15 is only ~46mm2 resulting in a 4.5mm underlap at the long edges, that won't really result in a measurable difference to if they were completely covered, because the IHS does cover them.

It's complicated but basically you are not going to end up with a situation where a amall % of the die is noticeably hotter than the rest when under a heat spreader that's under the contact plate of a gigantic heatpipe cooler. Yes the NH-D15 would perform better if it covered the complete die area, but we're talking less than a whole degree better. It's by no means cause to warrant not supporting TR4.