Intel said it is investigating on recent reports that its Skylake CPUs are bending when they are applied with too much pressure from certain third-party CPU air cooling systems.
Launched in September, Intel's 6th-gen processor seemed unable to withstand the pressure and showed signs of bending along with the motherboard. The problem was seen as being caused by placing some pressure on the mount point when shipping or moving a PC. This causes damage on the motherboard socket pins which then makes the CPU to bend under pressure.
PC Games Hardware, a German tech site, investigated on the matter and revealed that the issue may be due to the fact that the Skylake CPU has a thinner substrate than the previous generation models. With this in mind, CPU coolers tend to damage the processor and sometimes even the motherboard after placing high amount of pressure to both.
"Accordingly, the substrate of the CPU is the problem area which establishes the actual electrical connection between the silicon chip and the contacts in the socket," said PC Games Hardware. "An important factor in this case is likely to be the smaller thickness and thus lower mechanical stability of Skylake substrate compared to previous generations. Since Intel [is] does not freely offer the base-1151 cooler design guide as opposed to older platforms to download, we cannot check whether the specified pressure has been lowered now."
Intel confirmed that its latest Skylake CPUs are relatively thinner than their older siblings. The company even mentioned on its official site that the CPU's new sleek designs are "capable of starting in about half a second, and offer up to two and a half times the performance and triple the battery life when compared to the computers many people currently own."
Some of these vendors which provide cooling systems to Intel for their CPUs include Corsair, Cooler Master, NZXT, Scythe, Arctic, EK Water Blocks, Noctua, Thermaltake and Thermalright.
Likewise, PC Games Hardware was able to receive several replies from some vendors as a result of its investigation. These were revealed extensively on a site known as Hexus.
"We want to assure with this official statement that Arctic cooler not affected by these problems - and thus are fully Skylake compatible," said Arctic.
"All coolers are in fact generally compatible with Skylake sockets...in some cases result in damage to CPU and motherboard when the PC is exposed to stronger shocks," said Scythe.
Cooler Master assured its fans and supporters that all of their air and liquid cooling products are not affected by the above-mentioned mounting issue. The company had so far listed at least 10 of its CPU coolers which are designed specifically to work with Intel Skylake. These include Nepton 280L, Nepton 240M, Nepton 140XL, Nepton 120XL, Seidon 240M, Seidon 120XL, Seidon 120M, Seidon 120V Ver.2, Seidon 120V Plus and Seidon 120V.
