Intel Core i9 8-Core Rumored To Be A Soldered Wonder, Delidders Need Not Apply

Enthusiasts often turn to delidding to apply a more efficient thermal compound or to get more direct contact when going crazy with more serious cooling methods. German publication Golem.de first brought attention to Intel's decision to use solder, and other sources are claiming to have received confirmation of this move as well.

If these reports turn out to be true, the use of high quality solder between the die and the IHS should mean that enthusiasts will be able to forgo the treacherous delidding route when overclocking. We'd chalk that up as a win for the little guys. 

Right now, based on the preliminary information that we have to go on, these are the three Coffee Lake Refresh processors that Intel will launch in August:

• Core i9-9900K with 8 cores and 16 threads
• Core i7-9700K with 8 cores and 8 threads
• Core i5-9600K with 6 cores and 6 threads`

The Core i9-9900K has a base clock of 3.6GHz along with a single- and dual-core turbo clock of 5GHz. Quad-core turbo is listed at 4.8GHz while 6- and 8-core turbo is reportedly confirmed for 4.7GHz. The Core i9-9900K has a TDP of 95 watts and will have 16MB of Intel Smart Cache onboard.

According to anonymous sources that have gotten their hands on Coffee Lake Refresh engineering samples, they have been able to overclock to as high as 5.5GHz.