AMD releases image of its ZEN4 processor

Proof that people will find anything to complain about.

 

For some reason I can't post pics (nothing shows) but doesn't the new chip look a little like that old Corvette 5.7L V8 DOHC LT5 engine that was made by hand around 1987-1995 that pushed around 385-425HP?
https://www.onallcylinders.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/27/b522852bacc0c0f07cd417fde0518aec.jpg

 

Heat spreader thickness is inversely proportional to thermal transfer. All materials have a thermal resistance which increases with the thickness. Ideally you want as little material and joints between the heat generating components and the heat dissipating components. As always it's a more complicated subject than as I described.

The only time a thick heat spreader is useful is for very short bursts where it can act as a heat sink to temporarily store the heat energy.

 

thermal resistance (or conductivity) is a property of the material and does not change with the thickness, however the heat transfer rate does decrease with more thickness as you mentioned.

Interesting to see what the reasoning would be that led to this change vs past CPUs.

 

To get increasingly pedantic , thermal resistance and conductivity are not the same. Thermal resistance and conductance are the inverse of each other and both are thickness dependent. Thermal conductivity is independent of thickness. But we both get the picture.

 

The goal with the heatspreader is to spread heat from a 1cm x 1cm square (CPU die) to a 5cm x 5cm square (heatspreader).
The total heat generated by the CPU is the same, but the larger contact surface makes it much easier to transfer the heat to a cooler.

1cm x 1cm surface contact needs liquid metal or solder to transfer 200W of heat.
A large surface like a threadripper 10cm x 7cm (guessing dimensions) with 200W could be fine with mid range thermal paste, top quality paste would still be better, but the gain is smaller.

Try and feel a GPU backplate, if it is thin the heat will only transfer to a area about 1cm away from the heat source, because the plate can not conduct the heat good enough to a wider area.
This is also why good pre heatpipe coolers mostly have a big fat bottom plate, to transfer heat from CPU to a even larger area, before it is cooled by fins.
If a surface is not hot by the heatload it can not help dissipate the heatload from the CPU.

I am sure you are correct about the thermal resistance through a material, but the practical thermal transfer/spreading has higher priority or higher importance in this case.

 

Yeah. Unless you plan on making babies with it, why worry about what it looks like.

 

This thing looks BADASS!

 

Only thing I can think about this is that it will be more annoying to clean thermal paste from the clefts. I never really cared how the CPU looks. Perhaps thermal performance wise it is an improvement, which is most important.

 

I like it!...looks fast just sitting still...

 

I am still not a fan of the mounting solution for coolers, i don't like those two brackets.

 

Terminator Neural-Net Processor by Cyberdyne Systems
coming soon in your computer..wouldn't be surprised that's what's inside the 4090 I mean it's going to be nuclear hot and all

 

I'm guessing that means NVIDIA CEO is the Terminator since they wear the same leather jackets? ;-) Where does Lisa Su fit in character wise?