AMD's latest Ryzen 7000 chips face severe criticism for their design flaws.
AMD's latest Ryzen 7000 chips face severe criticism for their design flaws.
I wanted to talk about why AMDs decision to keep AM4 cooler compatibility with AM5 was probably the biggest mistake AMD has ever made, and why the alternative was a much better option. For those of you unaware, AMD AM5 (Ryzen 7000 series) CPUs all have an IHS (Integrated Heat Spreader) that is about 3.7mm thick. This is about double the thickness of a typical IHS. Why did they do this? Well, Ryzen 7000 series CPU dies actually sit much lower than last-gen Ryzen 5000 dies. So, instead of forcing consumers to buy new coolers or adapters when switching to AM5, AMD instead decided to simply make a super-thick IHS capable of filling the height gap so that your existing AM4 Cooler can be used on the new AM5 Platform. "Well that just sounds great, AMD is thinking about the customer and how to save them money! Why would you say that this is a bad thing?" - Thats what most consumers will say right off the bat. On paper, yes, it would seem that AMD is thinking about its customers and how to save them money. That may even very well be their entire reason, but the consequences of using a super-thick IHS are HUGE negatives and VASTLY OUTWEIGH the cost of a new cooler or adapter for a new system. Allow me to explain... You see, a thick IHS effectively traps additional heat inside the CPU cores, acting like a blanket. While the material used in IHS's is extremely thermally conductive for sure - less thickness is ALWAYS better. In fact, the super-thick IHS design is one of the MAIN reasons the Ryzen 7000 series CPUs all run so hot with the vast majority of them hitting their maximum allowed temperatures (TJMax) basically no matter what cooling solution you use. The super-thick IHS cannot send the heat to your cooler quickly enough, and thus your CPU sits at TJMax, leaving performance on the table and running like a furnace. The modern Ryzen CPU frequency boosting algorithm uses temperature as one of the main reasons to boost or lower frequency and this therefore effects the overall performance of your CPU. As such, running your CPU at TJMax is never recommended. AMD will tell you that this is intended operation and will not hurt the CPU. It may be true that over the course of a couple years, running at TJMax will not cause any major or even noticable issues. However, if you hold onto your hardware for multiple generations, this may become an issue later on. 5 years is a long time to be running at TJMax temperatures and at that point there will likely be performance degradation of some kind. Now this isn't the biggest deal in the world, but enough time has passed where people have modified Ryzen 7000 CPUs and yielded stunning results. And these results just make me look at AMD and go "Just what were those idiots thinking?" Because modifying your Ryzen 7000 series CPU can yield such massive temperature and performance benefits that most of you will agree - you would have happily gotten a new cooler or an adaptor kit for your existing one to see performance like this. One of the first independent reviewers to modify a Ryzen 7000 series CPU was JaysTwoCents of YouTube. In this video, Jay uses a process called "CPU Lapping". A process that basically entails shaving/sanding down the metal of the IHS to make it thinner. Jay did a pretty basic CPU Lap and did it rather quickly with not the best of results only removing about 0.8mm of IHS thickness and still managed an immediate drop in temperatures of over 10°C. His Ryzen 9 7950X went from running at maximum 95°C temperature to 83°C, even with a sub-par, rushed lapping job. This allowed Jay to unlock his 7950X with Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) to reach 5500MHz on all cores during an All-Core workload (CineBench) before hitting close to 95°C again. There is one major drawback though - you are physically modifying your CPU and any chance of ever getting the CPU serviced under warranty is now gone forever. You can't really just go out and buy a new IHS to replace it and hide the modification. The other small drawback will be seen in the video. Make sure you watch until the very end. Jay ended up having to modify his CPU cooler mount slightly to get proper contact with the lower IHS and get proper cooling performance. What really irritates me about this is the fact that when a new Socket comes to market, we are all used to either buying new coolers or getting adapter kits with new system builds. Even dumber still is the fact that not all AM4 coolers were even compatible because of a change in the design of the cooling mount backplate. So AMD has allowed our Ryzen 7000 CPUs to run insanely hot and loose performance all for compatibility that we don't even care about. Most companies end up offering adapter kits for new sockets that cost like $20. So AMD decided that saving $20 was more important than our $300-$700 CPUs actually running correctly at maximum performance without hitting maximum temperature. That has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. To make matters even worse, you can remove a lot more than 0.8mm of IHS material safely with proper modification. With an aftermarket CPU contact frame to replace the factory AMD CPU retention bracket, you can remove up to 1.6mm of IHS material with the official Thermal Grizzly Ryzen 7000 Lapping Tool and drop temperatures over 15°C. From there, DerBauer (Founder of Thermal Grizzly) shows us that with a full De-Lid (complete removal of the IHS) for direct-die cooling, temperatures can drop well over 20°C. Now Direct-Die Cooling can help ANY CPU cool better. Remember that when it comes to an IHS, less is better, so removing the IHS all-together is a powerful modification for cooling. However, because of the super-thick IHS of Ryzen 7000, the effect of De-Lidding a Ryzen 7000 CPU is far more profound. Most De-Lids result in a temperature drop of 10-12°C, but Jay got that same improvement just shaving the IHS down by 0.8mm. Direct-Die cooling also has a few major drawbacks. Firstly, it is impossible to use an Air-Cooler on a De-Lidded CPU. The CPU dies are extremely fragile and thats why the IHS normally protects them. Without the IHS in place, a large, heavy Air-Cooler will break or crack CPU dies, killing your CPU for good. As a result, water-cooling is required. On top of this, major modifications are required since the colling surface is now so low. You will need Thermal Grizzly's Direct-Die Mounting solution as well as Liquid Metal to use as thermal paste between the CPU dies and the Cooler, and there are risks associated with liquid metal as well. Finally, because of all the modifications required, Direct-Die Cooling is rather expensive and not worth the cost for the vast majority of PC builders. In the end, if you want to improve the cooling performance of Ryzen 7000 with minimal risk and expense, and you don't mind voiding your warranty, I would say the best option would be to lap the Ryzen 7000 CPU, shaving the IHS down by 0.8-1.0mm with the $19.99 Thermal Grizzly Lapping tool and some sand paper. You will drop temperatures significantly for a very low price and improve your CPU performance across the board while requiring little to no modification for your CPU Cooler Mount and you will have no problem using Air Coolers. Just be sure to research CPU Lapping on YouTube. Find a good tutorial and do it CORRECTLY. Take your time, and DO NOT RUSH the process. In conclusion, I truly do believe this is the biggest design mistake AMD has made in recent memory. They choked the performance of their CPUs for basically no real reason. Nobody cares about spending $20 on an adapter for their cooler when they are spending $1500-$2000 or even more on a new system. The super-thick IHS is WORSE than useless - it is a DETREMENT and could have been easily avoided if a single engineer at AMD sat down for 2 seconds and thought about the negatives sides of implementing such a stupid design.
My 7900x performs very well with air cooling and a CO undervolt. It stays quite cool—not extremely hot. Just last week I reached 30k in CBR23 with an 85°C limit.
And...? It's a tricky subject, hard to break down for most home PC builders. Nice effort though—most 7900X owners reach TJMax even with an AIO, which makes this a bit unclear...
You don’t need to crank the voltage or hit 5.4+ for the IHS to work; excessive heat eventually harms the stock IHS’s ability to dissipate heat. In my opinion, I’d favor Ryzen over Intel for better power efficiency, and it might also let you reach higher clocks on all-Cores since Ryzen’s cooling is much more effective. Intel, on the other hand, is simply not coolable and tends to struggle with heat management. The Ryzen 7000 IMX models are a bit less impressive compared to Intel’s offerings, while the newer IMX boards could be a better option if used boards become more common. Am4 remains very affordable with used DDR4 and B3/450 chips, though.
It feels like a choice made for the current phase that isn't really a big concern. These chips handle cooling easily and deliver performance with basic cooling. I don’t know your experience, but my team and everyone we collaborate with have faced few problems. Users with 360 AIOs are either running at normal settings or have a faulty mount. It’s straightforward—95°C still gives solid performance. You don’t need to overvolt; it’s unnecessary. Turn on PBO, let it adjust, and it handles 5.5GHz without issues. This situation seems like unnecessary drama, likely pushed by those without real experience. If it helps, hold off until the next update. These parts perform exactly what they claim.
5.5 Allcores using just PBO enabled. Capture a screen with CB active and display hwinfo64 showing each core's speed, voltage, and temperature. I usually skip auto OC and favor static OC because I can keep the CPU running at full speed continuously without it adjusting. I might experiment with AM4 in the future but right now I stick to static OC settings, fine-tuning RAM and adding some BCLK when possible.
Maybe you're unfamiliar with the term "marketing." You know these companies claim their products solve problems, right? They often hide design issues behind a polished image. Just because something works as advertised doesn<|pad|>, it doesn't guarantee the engineering was solid. You should be smarter about this. I was discussing stock operations, where the CPU was meant to run. To truly evaluate a product, you should look at it like Steve from GN or Linus does—stock it out of the box. This reveals how AMD engineers approached their design and what their goals were. You're probably just an AMD enthusiast defending whatever they do, and that doesn't matter if you also own an Intel system.
I’d prefer it to run a little warmer while still meeting its advertised specs, rather than needing to invest in new cooling solutions or adapters. That’s just my perspective. I think you’re assuming most buyers would rather replace cooling systems than accept a bit more heat without proper justification. They gave up thermal efficiency for the ease of use, which I see as a smart move. People generally resist change, so I’d agree that was a reasonable decision.
I don't currently have any AM5 CPUs to mention. Could you clarify which one you're referring to?
This seems a bit like conspiracy theories to me. They’d risk a major public relations issue if these chips failed en masse within two years, particularly in the more profitable corporate market where they’d lose out on gains from higher performance. The heat spreader does add some thickness and slightly reduces performance, but it doesn’t render the chips completely unusable while still meeting advertised specs. Honestly, it doesn’t seem like a huge problem. I’d be frustrated if I had to replace my cooler, and I’d mind if cooling was a bit more challenging. Both sides had advantages, but they chose compatibility over raw power. I don’t necessarily agree with that choice—I’d have preferred just swapping out the cooler mount, but it’s not as significant as what they’re portraying. (Just to clarify, I’m running a 13700K and have worked with Ryzen 7000 systems; I care about performance more than the manufacturer.)