Noctua today introduced its new NM-DD1 direct die kit. Developed in cooperation with professional overclocker and direct die cooling expert Roman "der8auer" Hartung, the NM-DD1 is a mounting spacer kit that makes it possible to use a wide range of Noctua CPU coolers on delidded AMD AM5 processors. Removing the processor's integrated heat spreader (delidding) and putting the heatsink directly onto the dies allows for much more efficient thermal transfer and can thereby lower CPU temperatures significantly, with typical gains in the range of 10-15°C.

"Delidding and direct die cooling will void your CPU's warranty and bear a certain risk of damaging it, so this certainly isn't for everyone," explains Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "However, the performance gains to be had are simply spectacular, typically ranging from 10 to 15°C but in some cases, we've even seen improvements of almost 20°C in combination with our offset mounting bars, so we're confident that this is an attractive option for enthusiast users. Thanks to Roman for teaming up with us in order to enable customers to implement this exciting tuning measure with our CPU coolers!"

EK, the premium liquid cooling hardware manufacturer, is launching the Direct Die product series aimed at delidding and achieving the ultimate cooling of the LGA 1700 socket-based Intel CPUs from the 12th generation Alder Lake and 13th gen Raptor Lake families. Kitguru teamed up with EK to investigate the potential benefits of direct die cooling for Intel's Alder Lake CPUs to achieve the best possible thermal performance on a daily basis. After publishing the first video announcing this collaboration, EK was overwhelmed by the response from Kitguru's audience. In order to bring these products to market, EK reached out to Der8auer, a renowned expert in delidding and direct die applications.

EK has prepared a total of four products to start this Direct Die series: two CPU water blocks (one Limited Edition), a delidding tool, and an upgrade kit for existing EK-Quantum Vector² LGA1700 water blocks. So far, these products are aimed at Intel's LGA1700 socket and 12th and 13th-generation Intel Core CPUs. Delidding is the process of removing the integrated heatspreader (IHS) to reduce the distance between the CPU core die and the coldplate of the CPU cooler. Another benefit involves the removal of an entire layer of thermal transfer from the CPU die to the IHS. The delidding process enables a direct heat transfer from the CPU core to the water block. All this results in a significant reduction in overall thermals and less thermal difference between CPU cores. The procedure is typically performed by experienced enthusiasts because it involves a physical modification of the product that voids the CPU warranty. For a more in-depth explanation, please refer to this EK's blog post on delidding.

For those users who thought they'd like some silver with their Intel, german webshop Caseking has a product for you. The company has taken the binning concept that we've already seen with other webshops, which pass the onus of the silicon lottery towards themselves, and taken it to the next level. Caseking will offer Core i7 8700K products that have not only been binned towards achieving guaranteed speeds of 5 GHz, 5.1 GHz and 5.2 GHz, but they're also retrofitting these binned 8700K processors with a 99.9% purity silver heatspreader to improve operating temperatures for these guaranteed-overclocking processors.