Today sales of the first AMD processors of the Ryzen 9000 family with Zen 5 architecture begin, and it is quite expected that the first fans of extreme overclocking to get to them, in the hope of improving results in this discipline, tried to remove the standard heat spreader cover. The scalping procedure has a high chance of failure, as can be judged by the experience of the first experiment.
Image source: Tony Yu
Photos published by enthusiast Tony Yu suggest that his attempt to remove the heat spreader cover from one of AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 family processors resulted in damage to the processor die responsible for I/O functions. In addition to this crystal, there is also a crystal with computational cores on the substrate of processors of this family; it was not damaged after an attempt to remove the cover, judging by visual signs.
But on the larger chip with the I/O blocks, a serious crack is clearly visible, and on the underside of the cover, part of the surface layer of this chip remains on the corresponding piece of solder. Under such conditions, it is difficult to count on maintaining the processor’s functionality, but such experiments always carry corresponding risks. Apparently, AMD, when producing Ryzen 9000 desktop processors, uses a thermal interface in the form of solder, which firmly connects the crystals to the heat spreader cover. Under normal operating conditions, this thermal interface works quite effectively, but overclockers who use extreme cooling methods and always strive to reduce the number of links in the heat transfer chain or improve their characteristics may try to remove it along with the cover. The main value of this particular unsuccessful experiment is the demonstration of the Ryzen 9000 family processor crystals without a cover installed on them.