German YouTuber der8auer has managed to lower Intel’s Core i9-14900KS temperature by 13°C after delidding it. This reduction allowed the chip to reach higher frequencies when manually overclocked.
In the conquest for maximum performance, few solutions come close to the gains obtained with direct die cooling. So, to check the benefits of this method on Intel’s latest Core i9-14900KS CPU, der8auer delidded one and tested it.
In its out-of-the-box state, the CPU P-cores clocked up to 5.8GHz during a multi-threaded Cinebench R23 load. This resulted in a 418W peak package power consumption, which was higher than what the liquid cooler could dissipate. In turn, this caused the CPU to thermal throttle.
After delidding the chip and applying liquid metal plus a direct die water block, temperatures became 13°C lower. Subsequently, the P-cores were able to maintain their 5.8GHz clock without throttling. Moreover, the CPU package power peaked at only 332W – hot chips tend to waste more power. That said, the average power consumption fell by around 12W.
With this temperature headroom, der8auer tried to push the frequency a bit higher. Using a high 1.525V, he managed to reach 6GHz on all P-cores. Note that here we are talking about constant 6GHz and not Intel’s thermal boost frequency, which only runs for a short duration. More impressively, this frequency was maintained with CPU temperatures still below the thermal throttling point even though the chip was consuming some 375W at its peak.
While these frequency figures are far from the 9.1GHz achievable using liquid helium, they are stable for daily operations with a consumer-grade liquid cooler.
If you would like something similar but don’t want to lose your warranty or don’t have the knowledge to delid a CPU, there is a solution. Some system integrators, such as Maingear, offer pre-built PCs with delidded i9-14900KS CPUs. Though, you will pay about $200 extra for that privilege compared to a similar non-delidded system.
