Is it all worth it?

Well that’s ultimately the question to be answered. We’ve had some impressive results over the years delidding both the Core i7-8086K and the Core i9-7900X. In temperature testing with our Core i9-7900X in Prime95’s burn test, we saw stock temperatures of 51C, clocked to 4.4GHz, that increased to 68C. Delidded stock temperature dropped to 40C (an 11C drop), and when overclocked the fall was even more dramatic, going from 68C to 53C (a drop of 15C). With our Intel Core i7-8086K, at stock in Cinebench R15 we saw temperatures skyrocket up to 78C. Overclocked to 5.2GHz it tapped out at 97C with a multi-threaded score of 1,682, and 224 points in single core. Delidded and with liquid metal applied, we managed to overclock it to 5.4GHz, with it scoring 1,753 points in Cinebench R15 multi, and 233 points in single core, with the temperature sat at a comfortable 83C. That’s a 200MHz increase, four percent performance increase, and a drop in temperature of 14C.

Even if you’re not into overclocking, a more efficiently cooled CPU leads to lower fan speeds and less noise. So for those looking for something to do in lockdown it might just be worth it.