Or, why am I not suprised. Google "Ivy bridge heat issues" to find out the details. I hate it when companys pull this sh*t. It wouldn't be so bad except that these are their flagship products. Intel says it "should be ok unless you run sustained heavy loads or overclock", WTF? What do you all think?

I am glad I didn't wait for the IB but went with the Sandy-E instead. Impatience can be useful sometimes.

If that's true they should not sell processors that can be overclocked (and charge extra for them).

It's a screw-up, but also a clear sign they're moving away from blazing desktop/server stuff towards low CPU, more portable or mobile types of things IMO.

I sort of wonder, was it a known or an unknown screw-up? The fabrication changes in Ivy Bridge are fairly radical even in the world of hardware, creating more problems than usual for the Intel strategy of keeping fabrication and CPU design on a 'tick/tock' cycle. The thermal paste stuff may be a complete mistake for this specific configuration of fab and CPU, but might not be for the next or next several things. I can sort of imagine scenarios where that would present some ugly decisions.

Ivy Bridge's thermal paste was a bad decision. There is very little market for it as a consequence.

Some people have removed the stock thermal paste and replaced it with aftermarket paste. The result was amazing, cutting heat by several celsius. Also, Ivy Bridge has been successfully clocked to over 7ghz. The chip itself seems to be a winner.

But the situation had me asking questions about their decision to use a different conductor. Cost cutting is not so ludicrious, but this screams of cheap. They could be hiding something related to the chip's durability or electrical sensitivity, but it wouldn't make sense to use paste that made the processor run hotter, effectively shortening it's life span. It really is a brain boggler.

The decision could have been an effort to use green materials, but seriously, the quantity is so small. Maybe they saved money bureaucratically by using it. No idea myself, but it's something to check on.

Although they could have selected a better performing TIM, the sloppy, inconsistent application that is most upsetting. The tolerances between the heatspreader and chip need to be better. Might just be a teething issue in their process. Or a trend.

On the conspiracy front, some claim that Intel deliberately created IvyB as a hot overclocker so she wouldn't embarrass the X79 family.

I think this is going to be a very expensive mistake for Intel. Just looking at myself i might hopefully get a new CPU soonish. I noticed the Ive Bridges were pretty much the same price as the Sandy Bridges so might as well get an Ivy, cause they run cooler,right ? Or do they ? So the way i see it either they fix this (costs a lot,recall and possibly even exchanging the ones they already sold) or they don't in which case i suspect the sales will take a big hit.

So what would you do if you were looking for a new CPU ? Hold off until they fix the problem ? Get a Sandy Bridge instead ? Maybe even wait for the next gen Ivy (or whatever it's called then) ? None very pretty prospect for Intel.

This could be something that is improved with later steppings but I agree that Ivy Bridge is pretty disappointing. It may <ahem> Haswell reign until September. The sooner the next gen gets here the better.

Haswell will have instruction level code that makes convolution faster, so it is probably best to hold out a little longer unless you must have Ivy Bridge.

I guess they should have called it the thorny bridge.

It's been a while since I've even looked at computer stuff but what a pisser for those in need to a new machine.