9900K Insanity Edition - Liquid Metal + Direct Die Cooling!

[Music] let's say that you're trying to overclock your 9900 K to five gigahertz but you've hit a thermal roadblock now aside from the fairly trivial solutions like upgrading your CPU cooler increasing your fan speed or improving your cases airflow there is a one thing that we haven't covered yet and that is direct dye cooling specifically what this means is that you're going to be removing the heat spread up from your CPU and then mounting your CPU call it directly to your CPU die now there are some risks involved here you could potentially kill your CPU but if the thermal drops are large enough this actually might be worth it for some of you [Music] so offer state that although the 9900 K is a relatively hot eight core CPU if you're just going to be leaving the bone stock in the BIOS this isn't something that you need to consider unless you are currently limited by your CPU core the 9900 K can be called comfortably with a 240 ml a IO granted that your motherboard isn't setting unreasonable voltages this mod is more relevant to those who are going to be pushing their 9900 K to 5 gigahertz and beyond and since that requires a higher CPU voltage the inherent trade-off there is of course increased CPU thermals for example pushing a 9900 K to 5 gigahertz will require around 1.3 5 volts for an average grade chip and even with a 240 ml a IO mounted on an open test bench with a room ambient of just 20 degrees C we're seeing the 9900 K average over 86 degrees C with a peak temp of 93 C with the launch of the 9900 KS the all core 5 gigahertz version of the 9900 K this video is even more so relevant for that processor now for those who don't know 9th gen CPUs from Intel are using the soldered thermal interface material so it's a lot more efficient and effective at transmitting heat compared to the 8th gen processors which we're using a bit of a dried up sort of toothpaste material as people were calling it still though we should be able to decrease thermals a little bit further also I will know that this is my 9900 K that I use in my editing and gaming PC and I did pay full price for it so the risk here is relatively high firstly let's see what the difference is it just by deleting and replacing the solder thermal interface material with liquid metal the tool that I'm going to be using here is devours dealer dime a to a really sturdy clamp tool which uses shear force to safely remove the CPUs heat spreader I will leave a link down below to this one in the description it is highly recommended so it's pretty simple just place the CPU into the slot with the correct orientation slide over and screw in the top portion and then begin screwing it in now since Intel's ninth gen processors are soldered I recommend doing a couple of passes here just to completely shear off the heat spreader in both directions so keep screwing it in on till you say the heat spreader loosen up then rotate the CPU 180 degrees and then do the same thing until the heat spreader provides almost no resistance then pull the heat spreader off and now it's time to clean things up because things are pretty messy underneath although this is a solar thermal interface it is pretty soft and can be carved off carefully with a razor key word there being carefully you definitely want to avoid any deep scratches to the die on the CPU it shouldn't take that much force to remove the solder Tim next you'll want to remove all of the black adhesive that holds the CPU heat spreader in place you definitely won't need a razor for this a hard plastic spatula is more than enough to remove all of it the one that I'm using here was borrowed from my iFixit screwdriver kit but if you don't have one of those you should be able to find a similar tool from a supermarket or from Amazon if you're just planning on deleting you'll also want to clean up the bottom of the IHS using the same steps now before we go straight to mounting the CPU call it directly to the CPU die let's first see whether plain old the deleting and replacing with liquid metal actually makes a difference the liquid metal that I'm using here is thermal grisly conduct or not I'll also link this one down below because it is highly recommended most of you guys have seen the application of this before it's just really conservative amounts and then take your time spreading it out over an even layer also the 9900 Kay has a couple of exposed pads very close to the die that you want to avoid shorting and you'll want to protect this from any potential liquid metal spills I used electrical tape you which surprisingly sticks to the PCB quite well but you can also use nail polish silicon glue or even thermal paste if you have nothing else on hand now usually this is the part where we'd glue the heat spreader back on but seeing as we're just going to test the direct die thermals right after there really is no point to that and looking at the thermals now deleting a 19900 Kay just to replace the solar thermal interface material with liquid metal is kind of pointless even with the 9900 kay point huge amounts of power at five gigahertz we're only seeing a drop of about four degrees C on average safe to say that's not worth the time and risk involved peak thermals dropped from 93 degree C to a slightly more tame 88 C but again it's nothing massive direct I calling is what really intrigues me though seeing as this effectively removes two layers from the equation the CPU heats Berna but also the thermal paste between the heat spreader and the CPU cooler now a really important note since you are removing around three millimeters of height from your CPU this means that your cooler will now need to be mounted to three millimeters lower so for the crack and x52 that I'm using for testing that meant that I had to swap out the original screws for m3 by 25 millimeter screws so just keep that in mind most air coals that I know for example can't be mounted at three millimeters lower just by improvising the screw length but most a iOS shouldn't really have a problem for direct die cooling I'd also highly recommend a Bowers OC frame essentially this just locks the CPU into the motherboard socket without the need for the retention bracket it is possible to mount the caller directly to the diet without using a frame or plate to hold the CPU in place though that's what I did for testing but I will note that this is extremely sketchy and I don't really recommend it if you're also using an improvised screw length you want to be really careful not to mount the caller with too much force just enough to get a firm contact on the CPU diet is enough anymore and you could risk cracking the die which is relatively delicate compared to the heat spreader so booting up a blender to peg all cores at five gigahertz and thermals are looking significantly better on average there's a thirteen point two degree C drop from stock and a nine point three degree drop compared to the diluted thermals that is a lot more than I was personally expecting at this point you're able to safely push workloads at five gigahertz on a 240 ml liquid a IO where previously that was peaking at around 19 degrees C and speaking of a peak thermals they saw an even harder drop of 16 degrees C from stock and 11 degree C when compared to the D lid so it's safe to say that if you're 9900 k is thermally restrained whether that's due - running a limited CPU cooler or pushing or overclocks to five gigahertz and beyond direct die cooling is actually extremely effective in reducing the thermals especially for those working with small form-factor cases I can see this being super effective but that's if you know what you're doing when it comes to PC hardware you do need to be really careful when dealing carving off the solder interface could end up as a disaster and liquid metal remember is electrically conductive having said that a 16 degree C drop from stock is absolutely enormous and that's definitely one of the bigger results that I've seen from direct die cooling on a ninety nine hundred K that is part Indu - doing the testing with at five gigahertz at one point three five volts if you're just running your CPU at one point two volts for example you're not going to see as much of a drop there because you're not pushing as much power so that's definitely something to keep in mind so of course if you are interested in doing this I will leave links to all the tools that you'll need down below in the description as always guys a huge thanks for watching and I will see you all in the next one

Channel: Optimum Tech

Views: 452,863

Rating: 4.8749495 out of 5

Keywords: 9900k, direct die, cooling, delid, liquid metal, 9900KS, i9, i9-9900k, intel, 9th gen, der8auer, solder, optimum tech, how to delid, CPU, CPU cooling, overclocking, 5GHz

Id: s3kxo-70FmM

Length: 8min 30sec (510 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Allhopeforhumanity]

I've never seen solder TIM removed in that fashion before. Is there any reason not to use a desoldering wick/pump?

[u/thisismysffpcaccount]

my butthole puckered so hard watching the process to remove the solder.

[u/Raptor52]

I used a credit card to remove the solder since the quicksilver wasn't liquifying the solder on mine. Just exercise caution around the corners as to not chip the die, but honestly an old credit card worked very well.

[u/xvalen214x]

you know you fucked up when you find your die missing a corner

[u/[deleted]]

I get butterflies fromlooking at the preview image using a box cutter / Stanley knife to remove the paste on the chip..

Isn't insanely risky that you could render it broken?

[u/HERD_]

Is direct-die safe & popular now? I was under the impression that the reason it died down was because of the probable die damage, either occurring immediately or long term.