Concerns are being raised over potential damage to Skylake CPUs due to high mounting pressure, but Arctic’s mounting system should mean their cooling solutions are unaffected.
Concerns are being raised over potential damage to Skylake CPUs due to high mounting pressure, but Arctic’s mounting system should mean their cooling solutions are unaffected.
PRESS RELEASE
ARCTIC coolers fully Skylake compatible
Certain CPU coolers may damage Intel’s current Skylake processors for socket LGA 1151 – this has just become known. The background is obviously a too high pressure, which can cause damage.
With this official statement we would like to assure that ARCTIC coolers are not affected by these problems – and thus fully Skylake compatible.
All ARCTIC CPU Coolers complies concerning the released sockets with the mechanical specification from Intel. With our coolers there are no problems on Intel CPUs of the 6th generation (Skylake) for LGA 1151.
Depending on the parcel service drop heights of over 2 m can not be excluded. Therefore we recommend regardless of the CPU used to carefully evaluate the dispatch and the packaging used, relying on the end user to mount larger and heavier CPU coolers where suitable.
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Editor’s Note:
Following feedback from a motherboard manufacturer over a separate issue we were made aware of a potential problem with Intel Skylake CPUs and 3rd party cooling solutions. German enthusiast site PCGamesHardware.de outlined their concerns regarding significant damage to a Skylake CPU by a cooler in a recent story, noting that Scythe have offered to replace the mounting mechanism on specific coolers free of charge as well as printing the responses of other manufacturers.
Intel Skylake CPUs utilise the LGA 1151 socket, a design which has identical mounting specifications to both Haswell (LGA 1150) and Ivy Bridge (LGA 1155) before it. Whilst the package dimensions have remained the same both substrate PCB and IHS have materially changed – the former being noticeably thinner, and the latter thicker to compensate. In theory this could mean that the CPU is more fragile, making it particularly vulnerable to higher mounting pressures and sudden shocks.
CPU coolers with spring mechanisms that limit the maximum contact pressure shouldn’t be affected. Others that exert a constant pressure may be more vulnerable, especially during shipping. For obvious reasons air coolers, with the heavy weight of metal heatsinks hanging from the socket, will tend to be more susceptible; however fixed-pressure coolers and water-cooling heatsinks won’t be immune if a proper installation procedure isn’t followed.
SOURCE: PCGamesHardware.de (Translated)
