There has been a lot of talk about chiplet designs and the pro’s and con’s to this approach for increased performance. Lurking like a sleeping dragon the ongoing issue of heat dissipation is always hiding around a corner. AMD fully embraced the chiplet design with their Ryzen 3000 series processors. Famous overclocking specialist der8auer has created a custom bracket to address potential heat dissipation issues for AMD’s current chiplet design.
Example of a delidded 3900x
From der8auer’s website:
“On a ‘normal’ CPU the hotspot would be in the centre of the package. But since the chiplet design consists of several CPU-dies, the one hotspot is brocken up into several hotspot that are located at the corners of the package.”
In his video he goes on to explain that with the chiplet design the ‘hot spot’ is no longer directly in the center. The chiplets are either side by side, as with the 3900x, or offset on the die, 3600x-3800x. This in turn means that AIO’s using the traditional mounting brackets continue to focus on the center of the heat spreader even though the heat sources may not actually be located there. He states the benefit is primarily to even out heating issues that can arise during load spikes in gaming sessions. Furthermore he elaborates that using a 3900x and a Corsair H100i cooler. Using the Cinebench R20 benchmark tool he saw a 6-7 degree drop in temperature. Mileage can vary but he believes that a potential of lowering temps by 4-10 degrees is possible. It has heavily emphasized that it really depends on the user’s AIO cooling configuration.
Compatibility
Presently these brackets have been designed for a variety of AM4 motherboards. They have tested x570 boards as well and indicated that some older boards might be compatible. Testing with every AM4 motherboard not been verified. Minor modifications are needed for some x570 boards though.