The holes or vents at the base of the IHS are likely for ventilation purposes.
The holes or vents at the base of the IHS are likely for ventilation purposes.
I've shared the update about the new Zen4 CPUs having some openings near the IHS. You can see this in the images (referenced from videocardz and Reddit). Besides looking neat, are there any technical reasons behind it? For example, heat management?
The spaces exist to remove the capacitors in those spots I think...
The IHS design is more substantial on the Ryzen 4 to maintain the same height as earlier models and ensure compatibility with current coolers. The openings might assist in soldering when the IHS attaches to the dies. It could also help lower the overall weight of both the IHS and CPU.
In essence, yes. AMD had multiple options to fix the problem, but the easiest and most affordable was simply increasing the thickness of the IHS itself. They might have raised the height of the socket or the CPU base using an interposer, though this would likely have been costly since it only involved adding more copper without needing advanced PCB design. Another possibility was abandoning backward compatibility—breaking a compatibility they had maintained for 17 years with certain coolers since the AM2 era. At that stage, it would have seemed acceptable, especially since Intel also lost compatibility recently. Still, it’s impressive that someone could theoretically fit a 2006 cooler onto an X670 board today without upgraded mounting hardware. Even if no 2006 cooler could handle the 7950X, that would represent remarkable backward compatibility.