This accessory is made to keep your Intel Alder Lake processor from bending
Intel probably won’t approve of this mod, however.
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Noticed your 12th Gen Intel processor is bending a little? Well, Intel would say that’s justfine and dandy, and that it has no plans to adjust the Independent Loading Mechanism (ILM) as it’s all within manufacturer spec. It also says that you might void your warranty by running non-standard setups, such as washers or an accessory like this one: Thermalright’s LGA1700-BCF.
So whywouldyou want to load one of these accessories into your machine? Quite simply, it could be beneficial when it comes to CPU temperatures and getting the most out of your CPU. The small bending in Intel’s 12th Gen, while reportedly no danger to the chip, could see it lose some contact with your cooler and run a little hotter as a result.
The BCE from Thermalright (spotted byCowcotland) is built out of aluminium and designed to keep your chip snugly fit into your motherboard with no wiggle room. That should keep the bending to an absolute minimum, if not fix it altogether.
The BCE accessory appears to be only available in China at the moment, however. It’s something to keep an eye out for if you’re interested, though, as the manufacturer Thermalright does sell its products in other parts of the world. It’s a fairly simple part, too, so I imagine other manufacturers will follow suit with similar designs.
If you want an immediate fix for bending, you coulddrop a couple of washersonto the CPU socket screws and prevent it that way. It’s reportedly easy to do, just note that we’ve not tested the long-term impact of it ourselves and Intel might not like you returning a faulty chip after this mod has been used.
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Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog. From there, he graduated to professionally breaking things as hardware writer at PCGamesN, and would go on to run the team as hardware editor. He joined PC Gamer’s top staff as senior hardware editor before becoming managing editor of the hardware team, and you’ll now find him reporting on the latest developments in the technology and gaming industries and testing the newest PC components.
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