Amd ryzen 3000 with stock intel heatsink will it burn out?

We have taken advantage of the peculiar ASRock Phantom Gaming ITX TB3 motherboard and the new AMD Ryzen 5 3600X to put it together with an impressive stock Intel heatsink to see what happens. Do you think it will burn or cannot be installed directly? If we are writing this it will be because the experiment may have turned out well, so let's see.

Components used: is it possible on any board?

Definitely not, it is not possible to do it anywhere, since as a general rule, a stock Intel heatsink will only be able to be installed on a motherboard on the same platform. We are talking about boards with an Intel Z390, B360, Z370 chipset , etc. The heatsinks of the blue giant have not changed one iota since the first Core 2 in LGA 775 socket appeared.

ASRock plate

This time we have had the opportunity to mount the AMD processor with Intel Heatsink stock thanks to the ASRock Phantom Gaming ITX TB3 board, here we will leave you the corresponding analysis of it. It is a high-end ITX format board belonging to the new generation AMD X570 platform for Ryzen 3000 processors. The ASRock guys have not thought of anything other than implementing an Intel's own mounting system on an AMD board, the reason? Well, we do not know, perhaps some absent-minded fellow with creativity.

Jokes aside, this provides an interesting advantage in the face of installing custom heatsinks that are only compatible with Intel. Make no mistake, there's still more than AMD, and generally the grip mode is usually better and more stable.

Ryzen 3000 CPU and heatsink TDP

AMD heatsink

Intel heatsink

And since we do the work, what less than mounting it with one of the new Ryzen, specifically the AMD Ryzen 5 3600X. It's a 6-core, 12-thread -processing CPU that works at a base frequency of 3.8 GHz and around 4.1 GHz in turbo mode, at least until new BIOS drivers fix certain performance issues and it can come at its maximum of 4.4 GHz.

The stock heatsink used by the 3600X is Wraith Spire, fitted with an aluminum block built into an 85mm fan of considerably larger size than the stock Intel. Let's say that the Intel is more like the Wraith Stealth, somewhat smaller than the Spire, but still with a higher fan than the Intel.

And an important matter when choosing a heatsink is knowing the power or TDP that is capable of dissipating in the form of heat. The 3600X is a 95W TDP processor, while the 3600 has 65W, and this is why its stock heatsinks are different. If we now go to an Intel product, for example the Core i5-9400F, it has a TDP of 65W and consequently, it brings that Intel heatsink from stock, which is precisely the one we have taken for the test.

What we mean is that a priori, we are getting a heatsink with less heatsink than the 3600X needs, so in a way, it could be dangerous. But of course, Intel does not have more stock sinks, and we want to push it to the limit, without risking the AMD Ryzen 3700 or 3900X.

A montage with some danger

We already have the three main ingredients, board, CPU and heatsink, so let's assemble the AMD processor with Intel stock heatsink.

As you know, the stock Intel are heatsinks provided with a plastic frame with four screws that we must tighten against the board and then give them a half turn so that they are fixed with a system, at least, unreliable and that has sometimes escaped past a time.

Here it will be important to keep in mind one thing, that the AMD processor has a larger IHS than that of Intel, and it is also a little higher compared to the level of the board than the Intel. Consequently, we have had to put the heatsink doing a little more pressure than normal. At least, being a plastic frame, it has given up a bit and has been able to be fixed successfully without damaging the processor. To some extent this can be dangerous to the integrity of the CPU, the trick is to tighten the screws that make the diagonal with the heatsink pushed hard towards the board.

This problem will not appear on custom heatsinks as they come with a more generic mount and have much better maneuverability at different heights.

The second problem is in the Ryzen's IHS, which is not only large, but much larger than Intel's, so part of it is going to be left out of the contact block. In addition, these new Ryzen have three DIE inside so they are more spread over the substrate. In any case, the conductivity of the copper IHS should alleviate the possible problems in heat transfer.

With everything ready, let's see how the temperature tests have been developed.

Test bench and temperatures (happy ending)

As we usually do in the Reviews, we have chosen to subject this CPU to a continuous stress process of about 12 hours using the Primer95 software in the "Large" mode, of course updated to its latest version. Why do we say this? Well, because the previous version works poorly with the new Ryzen and makes its temperature rise to the maximum for no apparent reason.

That said, we have kept the ambient temperature at 24 ° C during the tests, in order to compare these measurements with those obtained during the Review of this CPU.

We have taken a certain risk of leaving this CPU under stress for so many hours, but we know that AMD, like all CPUs, have protection systems that will limit the frequency and voltage when the temperature exceeds 95 ° C, being its TjMAX of 100 ° C.

The temperatures of this AMD Ryzen 3000 with Intel stock heatsink at rest have remained at around 63 ° C on average, while the temperatures recorded with its stock heatsink were 49 ° C, 14 degrees below, which is very much.

While the stress process has registered an average temperature of 90 ° C, being 20 degrees higher than that recorded in the Review. In fact, the maximum peaks have been at 98 ° C, which is practically the AMD's TjMax.

And it is not all, because if we take a look at the HWiNFO capture, we will see that the average voltage supplied to the CPU is 1, 200V, well below the normal for this board, located at about 1, 400 V approximately. This means that the frequency has been almost all the time below the maximum, between 3.8 GHz and 4.0 GHz, that is, practically its stock speed.

Stock temperature

Temperature in stress

The images above correspond to the thermal situation without load, and the situation after 12 hours of stress. The differences are not too great, since for example the VRM of the board has never been in trouble for having a much higher capacity than the one demanded by this processor.

The surface of the heatsink is only a few degrees warmer, although on the surface it does not show what is really happening, due to air circulation. We assure you that the aluminum fins are much hotter.

Not recommended at all

To this we have to add a very important detail that we have observed during the tests, and it has to do with the compatibility of the fan with the motherboard.

At least on this board, the fan has not been detected, nor its RPM, so in PWM control it has completely failed. Consequently, the fan has been kept all the time at around 2000 RPM judging by the low noise it made, while its maximum speed is 3200 RPM.

This, together with very, very constant high temperatures, means that we never recommend installing such a heatsink on an AMD Ryzen. But we had to do the test since we were given the opportunity, and it was worth it to learn more about these elements, their compatibility and their technical limitations.

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Did you find the AMD Ryzen 3000 processor with Intel stock heatsink interesting ? Saving the distances Do you think Intel should work more on its heatsinks? Tell us if you have ever done any of these curious tests, or give us ideas for us to carry out.