You may need a new cooler mounting solution for LGA 1851 Arrow Lake CPUs

It's about time we switched things up a bit

Jack Howarth

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As we know from previous Intel leaks, Intel Arrow Lake-S CPUs will be based on the LGA 1851 socket. We already knew everything we needed to know, we had the dimensions, number of pins, IHS height, and everything we ever needed really, or did we? New information suggests you may need a new cooler mounting solution for LGA 1851 Arrow Lake CPUs.

Leaked LGA 1851 specifications

Thanks to a new leak from Igor’s Lab and a report from WccfTech we now have a pretty full picture of what socket LGA 1851 will involve.

The new Intel LGA 1851 socket is quite similar to the current LGA 1700 socket but with a few small changes. The most significant difference is that it will have more contact pads, going from 1700 to 1851, which is an increase of 151 contact pins (around 9% more). The size of the socket itself will stay the same, measuring 37.5mm x 45mm.

Also, the Z-height, which is the distance from the top of the motherboard to the top of the CPU, will be almost the same, but there might be some slight height differences. This is something that can be easily fixed with a few minor modifications, what cannot, however, is the mounting pressure required.

LGA 1851 CPUs require more mounting pressure

Igor’s Lab discovered that the LGA 1851 (Intel Arrow Lake-S) CPUs require almost twice as much mounting pressure in order to properly function.

If we turn our attention to the “Dynamic Compressive” portion of the table above, we will see that the required compression is 923 N, that’s 210 lbf. Almost twice that of Alder Lake, and the mounting solutions there were already a slight concern. There’s no way that the current Alder Lake mounting solution can be adapted to output that level of compression.

For comparison, Alder Lake only requires 489.5 N, that’s 110 lbf almost half that of the new Arrow Lake-S CPUs.

The issue with the old mounting hardware was that, when Alder Lake was tested, a number of older coolers weren’t making sufficient thermal contact with the CPU IHS, resulting in poor thermal performance. The issue arose from subtle height differences over socket generation and the new CPU IHSs.

There’s very little chance that an adaptation of the current system will yield over 200 lbs of force over a sustained period when some of the solutions we have now can’t even make proper contact with the CPU.

It’s very likely that Intel will have to collaborate early with cooler and motherboard manufacturers to ensure that a solution is found before the full launch of the Arrow Lake-S CPUs. We can’t have a CPU launch without a sufficient cooling and mounting solution, can we? You may need a new cooler mounting solution for LGA 1851 Arrow Lake CPUs.