Intel to Cover Delidding in Warranties, But With a Big Catch

Intel will not void the warranty of a delidded CPU, as long as it is of a specific model and was obtained from particular suppliers, according to an industry insider. Delidding is the process of removing a CPU's integrated heat spreader and replacing its stock thermal paste with the goal of improving temperatures.

The Intel Core i9-14900KS launched on March 14, becoming the most powerful desktop-class Raptor Lake CPU that the American chip giant has ever released. That power comes at a cost, however, as many experts have noted that the processor should be delidded to compensate for the intense heat it generates. Intel has long considered delidding to be a tweak that voids a CPU's warranty, but the company has apparently made an exception for the i9-14900KS.

In a recent video, popular German overclocker Roman "der8auer" Hartung revealed that Intel will still honor the warranty of an i9-14900KS that was delidded by specific system integrators, not regular consumers. Hardware companies have given PC builders special treatment before, like when AMD offered the Chinese market-exclusive Radeon RX 7900 GRE to the rest of the world through system integrators. Hartung did note that the i9-14900KS' case was special, as he had not heard of or seen anything quite like it before.

Among the boutique PC stores in North America that have started to offer a delidded i9-14900KS is Maingear. For an extra $200, customers can get the modified chip over the regular i9-14900KS to go with Maingear's flagship MG-1 custom desktop, Techradar reported. While the delidded CPU will undoubtedly perform better, even an unmodified sample will pump out impressive framerates in games thanks to the Intel i9-14900KS' core specs. With its out-of-the-box max boost clock of 6.2 GHz, Intel's latest and greatest easily beats the still powerful i9-13900KS it succeeded, which had also been the company's top-performing CPU when it was released last year.

Intel 14th Generation CPU Game Features

Both the 13900KS and i9-14900KS will provide their owners with additional boosts in specific titles thanks to Intel's Application Optimization (APO) software, a technology that helps players get more performance using the chipmaker's 12th, 13th, and 14th generation processors. A dozen games recently adopted official support for Intel APO, including Final Fantasy 14, Red Dead Redemption 2, and World of Warcraft.

Intel's next-generation Lunar Lake mobile chips are expected to launch at the end of 2024, releasing alongside the Arrow Lake desktop series of CPUs. The specs of a Lunar Lake processor were seemingly leaked in February by a tester, revealing a chip that used Intel's upcoming Lion Cove-based performance cores and Skymont-based efficiency cores.

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Intel Core i9 14900KS 24-Core, 32-Thread CPU

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Brand

Intel

CPU Model

Core i9 14900KS

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The Intel Core i9 14900KS 24-core, 32-thread CPU is Intel's special edition CPU take on its flagship 14th generation CPU, the Core i9 14900K.

It is essentially a cherry-picked 14900K SKU that can push higher clocks with up to a minimum of 6.2 GHz on its P-Cores, making it effectively the highest-clocked CPU out of the box to date when it comes to boost clocks from Intel.

It trades at a significant premium as a result and is expected, as a limited-run chip, to be a collectible SKU with high demand from enthusiasts and overclockers in 2024.

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CPU Socket

LGA 1700

Cores

24 Cores (8 P-Cores + 16 E-Cores)

Threads

32 Threads

Architecture

Raptor Lake Refresh

Process

Intel 7

Base Clock Speed

3.2 GHz (2.4 GHz E-Cores)

Boost Clock Speed

6.2 GHz (4.5 GHz E-Cores)

Cache

36 MB L3, 32 MB L2 Cache

Graphics

Intel® UHD Graphics 770

TDP

150 Base TDP

Power Draw

253 W

See at Amazon $730 at Newegg

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