I was already wondering if we could get the fancy intel single heat-pipe cooler on the 7x40u but that ended up obviously looking somewhat different. The ai 300 one does look like it might fit. With the help of chatgpt (being a mixture of genius and entirely wrong) I ran the images through fiji and it looks like it could fit.
Everywhere there are thermal pads there is copper (the bottom left vrm pad may not have full coverage bit I am also not 100% the pad is completely in the right place in that picture).
It is kind of a moot point for me since framework doesn’t ship to me and they aren’t in stock jet anyway but could be an interesting upgrade. I also just want to know how much better they actually are.
I had asked Destroya the same question about a month ago and she was fairly sure they are not compatible. Still, we have yet to hear Framework confirm or deny this officially, so I’m also curious.
I kind of doubt we’ll get an official it’s compatible from fw, even if it is compatible it will require different thermal pad placement and maybe even different thicknesses.
Still it would be interesting to know why they think it will not fit, the new heat-sink does not seem the interfere with anything and it seems to cover everything the old one cares about based on thermal pads. Is it just the wrong pre-apiled thermal pads? Is the location of the actual silicon significantly different? Are the wings at a different z-height requiring different thermal pads? Is there some interference I overlooked on the images? Is the cable shorter?
My 7840u heat sink doesn’t have any thermal pads at all, only the paste on the cpu, while the heat sinks sold as parts show an array of thermal pads. I wonder if this omission would have any impact on longevity and performance.
Judging from some of the throttling issues here it is quite likely the vrms are smart power stages that can protect themselves from melting down but them running hot may still be not great. I wonder if the addition of the thermal pads was a later addition, I don’t actually remember if mine has any.
The information that it can run without them is good to know though that would mean a potential slight lack of coverage would not be catastrophic.
Anyone know where I can find a high res picture of a 7x40u framework mainboard without the cooler and stickers and stuff? Don’t really feel like taking mine apart just to see what’s actually supposed to be under those thermal pads.
