- Everything about this computer is designed to do one thing
beat the competition, price or practicality be damned.
RTX 3090 TI. $1,200 motherboard.
Graphene-infused liquid coolant.
And the centerpiece of our
"so fast its kind of stupid" computer;
the Intel Core i9 12900KS,
a product that as far as we can tell only exists
so that Intel can still say,
no matter how many asterisks,
they have the fastest gaming CPU.
And what do you do with something like that?
Well, you don't really bother to review it
because it's never gonna make any sense.
Instead, you take things one step further
by making it even dumber.
That's right, we have obtained
the Rockit Cool Copper IHS for 12th gen.
This is a product that assumes you have
so much disposable income,
you can not only buy the fastest thing
just to have the bragging rights,
but you can spend more, risk destroying it,
and all just to drop your CPU temps by a few degrees.
- [Alex] Well, like 15 some people say.
- 15 degrees? - [Alex] Yeah, 15.
- Holy crap.
Well this is gonna be fun then, innit?
Almost as fun as telling you about our sponsor.
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- Rockit Cools claims raise a lot of questions for me.
There's no doubt that copper's
an excellent conductor of heat,
or that the 12900KS is a hot, power hungry chip
that could benefit from additional cooling,
but here's the issue.
Integrated heat spreaders
have been made of.
Holy (beep) is this one not copper?
Ah, yes it is.
Integrated heat spreaders have been made of copper,
basically going back as long as I've been an enthusiast.
I mean, this is a Pentium 4 from 2003.
Of course you might say,
but that copper has this other stuff on top of it.
But that's the thing, that's not a problem,
that's nickel plating.
Nickel plating performance coolers has been common practice
for over 10 years, and the layer is so thin
that it's been well demonstrated
that it doesn't have any impact on cooling.
According to Rockit Cool, it comes down to their design
which supposedly improves surface area
by 9 1/2%, as well as their quality.
They say that their IHS is extremely flat,
which we know should have a positive impact on our cooling.
But here's the thing.
Alex, I know that Intel is mass producing these things
by literally the millions,
but is it conceivable that in that mass production
they're allowing their tolerances to slip such
that some random could make it more perfectly?
More accurately?
- [Alex] Yeah, I really doubt that Intel spends $33
on their or IHS.
- I'm sure it's clear to everyone
that neither of these are $33 worth of copper,
and both of them had to be CNC machined,
so what makes one of them more expensive to machine?
- The tighter your tolerance is, so the flatter it is,
the more expensive it gets.
- Why? Better machine, more time?
- Both?
- But then why wouldn't Intel
just use a better machine at their scale?
- Well, because they're doing so much scale.
They only have to make a couple of these guys,
Intel's making thousands and thousands of those.
That adds up fast.
- [Linus] So they wanna go fast?
- [Alex] Yeah, they wanna go fast.
- Could it make that much of a difference?
We can actually get some idea by taking a closer look
at the thermal paste pattern of our stock IHS.
- It looks like there was way more pressure right
in the center, which is good, that's right where the dye is,
and then around that, not so much.
So I imagine this part, not doing a whole lot of cooling.
- But enough talk.
Now it's time to perform surgery
on the $800 CPU that I just bought yesterday.
Can you believe Intel wouldn't send us a second sample
after the review?
- [Alex] What a bunch of jerks.
- I know, right? (Linus huffing)
There are a few different configurations
that you can get your copper IHS upgrade kit in.
You can get just this and that's $33,
or if you don't have any delidding tools
or anything like that, you can get the full kit
for 80 U.S. dollars, which is everything you need
to take apart and reassemble your CPU.
- [Alex] Well, there's no glue.
You need to buy the glue separate.
- Oh, you go buy silicone glue?
Well, that's probably fine.
- [Alex] They recommend CA actually-
- CA? - [Alex] Yeah.
- I would think it'd be too brittle. Alright.
Well, we're gonna follow the instructions.
(component clattering)
- [Alex] Geez.
- Sorry. The delidding tool is machined delrin.
Not as fancy as Der8auer
and you actually have to insert your CPU
and then screw it shut in order to operate it,
which is a little less user friendly,
but it's also significantly lower cost.
And they say the whole thing can be done in a few minutes,
and from the look of it I believe them.
Wait, why am I using this thing?
When I have an lttstore.com screwdriver! Yes.
The next page of the instructions are pretty crap.
It just says set a two minute timer with a heat gun,
no mention of temperatures or anything like that.
Fortunately we're fairly smart.
We can figure out that we need to melt the solder
that is attaching the original IHS to the dye.
Oh, that's actually a benefit to the delrin,
it'll sap away less heat once we clam shell it up.
What are we at?
- Looks like we're right around 130 degrees,
so that isn't hot enough to melt solder.
Probably let free around 270 degrees,
but it is gonna be getting softer for sure.
The delrin's at about 140 degrees right now,
so probably don't touch it.
- [Linus] We're gonna wanna move reasonably quickly here.
This seems like a crap ton of pressure.
I feel like I'm ruining it.
- I found on soldered CPUs,
if it doesn't feel quite right
when it starts moving in one direction,
like it doesn't pop off, if you flip it
and then push it the other way you can kinda
just strain fatigue it.
- [Linus] Well, it's moving freely now,
- Oh, there you go. - so that's cool.
Boop. Look at that. Beautiful.
And not even that burn-y.
The next step is to scrape it then, right?
- [Alex] What are you scraping?
- I'm gonna scrape the solder.
- Okay, well first we need to get rid of the black crap.
It's one step at a time.
- I told you they include a scraping tool.
Man, I can't believe that we bought this yesterday
and we are already doing this to it.
- [Alex] This isn't abuse, we're making it faster.
(Linus groaning)
- Scraping tool just feels like just the right hardness.
Sorry, how exactly does this tape gun work?
The blade is recessed.
- [Alex] You just push the thing.
- Oh. - When you have a box
it goes over, you push, it comes out.
- Oh, that's actually quite clever.
Which is good, because I think I paid a lot
for this thing way back in the day.
It's taped down. Now what?
- This is cool part. I really like how they've done this.
Instead of, you know, sometimes you have to use a razor
to get the solder off
- Yeah, for sure. - and it's just terrible.
Here, use these chemicals.
I believe this indium and it eats away the solder.
So you just apply it,
- Shut up.
- spread it around, and it gets rid of it.
- [Linus] What?
Okay. That's pretty neat.
You don't wanna get, woo,
you don't wanna get that in your eyes.
- [Alex] But the other way to do this apparently is mercury,
and that's a lot worse.
- That's true.
And a one, two, three.
Gotta say, the little tissues I dispose of
usually don't look like this.
(Alex sighing)
- [Alex] The next bit
is you just wanna give it a little polish.
- [Linus] Okay.
- Little dab of this on some paper towel.
- Oh, I thought this said Flitz Polish, like from Poland.
Oh.
- [Alex] Yeah, if you kinda look at how they did it here,
they just do a little bit of the corner.
- [Linus] Uh huh, yeah.
- [Alex] Yeah.
- Don't mind me. I'm just polishin' my CPU, here.
(CPU clicking)
- That's probably good.
- Ooh.
Hi Brandon, how you doin'?
I am really glad that I did an accurate job of that taping,
because that ended up being quite messy.
- To be clear,
I don't think the process has to be that messy.
- That's what she said.
(Linus laughing) (Alex sighing)
Look at that. It's gorgeous.
Oh, balls. Oh, it's everywhere.
Oh, it's all over my hands.
- I guess this is a situation
where having a delrin thing would be good.
That would be eating in into aluminum right now.
- Okay, I'm just getting more liquid metal
on this by touching it,
because my hands are covered in liquid metal.
At any rate, there's a 12th gen thing here.
'Kay, go ahead. We put our CPU in. Whoop.
We're gonna put this here. Oh God! Oh God.
- [Alex] Jesus Christ.
- Okay. Where'd our liquid metal go? Oh, here it is.
Whoa, no, that's too much.
Oh, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Come back.
(Linus mocking bubbles)
Hm, I mighta put on too much, hey Alex?
- [Alex] No, that's seems good.
- Unlike applying thermal compound to your heat spreader,
here it's important to have complete coverage of the dye
because every part of it has the potential
to get extremely hot and any part of it
that doesn't have thermal compound coverage is a disaster.
Oh man, this is, what a ride.
I feel like we've waited so long to unbox this now.
Look at that,
you can actually see the tooling marks in the top.
It's kinda hard to catch, but they kinda go this way.
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
That doesn't mean that it's not flat.
It just means that you can see the marks a little bit.
Oh, I see. So it is a little bit bigger.
Yeah, I see that.
Wow, Alex, I see what you mean.
This yellow rectangle,
it's like they didn't even try to center it.
Why?
Rockit Cool includes a nice little guide here
to show you where to apply just a little bit
of liquid metal to the underside of the IHS.
Not gonna lie, this looks sick.
Okay. Wait, we didn't put glue on.
Oh my God that is a giant thing of CA.
How are we applying this?
I have an idea.
Ready? (component thunking)
For our CA I'm just gonna make a puddle of CA.
(Linus booping)
We go ahead and just drop it into place. Wop.
And here we go.
Does this feel like absolute madness or what?
- I don't know, this seems fine.
Intel making a CPU's the madness.
- In fairness, it does, what is it? 5.5 on
- two cores. - two cores?
It's fast.
- Really fast.
In my testing that I did it was doing 5.2 all core all day.
Pretty great. - Wow. Okay.
- [Alex] Oh, did you CA glue it to the thing?
- [Linus] No.
Oh, there it goes.
- [Alex] What's that?
- Liquid metal. (beep)
Why don't you handle the CPU from now on?
- Okay. - Fun fact,
alcohol not only dries quickly, but it's a drying agent.
- Don't do that.
If you want a good ole sandpaper wank later
that's how you do it.
- Okay, that's pretty cool.
And the cooler we're gonna put on it
is about as good as it gets
until you get into Peltier or phase change cooling.
It's a fully custom loop
with ample radiator space for this heat.
And that bit about graphene infused coolant,
we did a whole video about it.
It actually does drop the temps a couple of degrees.
So this is as good as it gets.
Man, this is way more extreme
than just buying the highest end parts
and throwing them together.
We are trying to shave every degree off of this CPU.
Moment of truth.
(something mocking flatulence)
Oh hey, there we go.
(keyboard clicking)
Do you believe this will have worked?
15 degrees is a bold claim for $33.
I mean, you could spend 33 more dollars on a cooler
and it wouldn't drop your CPU temps 15 degrees.
- Well, this cooler will do that.
Anyway, I think it'll be around 10.
I've seen a lotta people comment
that it's like a 10 degree drop,
- Really? - Which is crazy.
- That's also really impressive.
And it booted, which is good.
We haven't managed to kill it.
Really Alex, Windows 11?
You know the people are gonna be mad, right?
Prime95?
- [Alex] Yep.
- Small FFT?
- [Alex] Blend.
- Wait, this thing hit a hundred degrees in a blend test?
- [Alex] After like nine minutes or something, yeah.
- Really? - [Alex] Yeah.
- On custom water cooling?
- [Alex] Well, it's like 240 watts sustained.
- Out of the box?
- Yeah. - Wow, actually,
two of the cores are at 5.5.
- Yeah. - Just like they said.
Now, before we actually put the processor under load,
is a perfect time to have a look
at all of our temperature sensors and make sure
that none of them are a huge outlier, which could indicate
that we didn't have adequate coverage of our liquid metal,
and it looks like this is all in okay shape
and we're ready to press go.
I mean, we're gonna know almost immediately if this worked.
Wow.
- Now to be clear, it did take eight minutes
for it to thermal throttle last time, but.
- [Linus] I don't think we're gonna get there.
- [Alex] Yeah, we haven't hit 60 yet.
- This is interesting. For a couple of reasons.
First, we can see why it's best not to use Prime95 Blend
for a stress test.
That's okay.
But as long as we do it both times,
that's kind of flippin' incredible.
It's not 15 degrees incredible,
but it's a lot better than a kick in the teeth.
It's in the neighborhood just shy of 10.
- [Alex] Nine degrees while consuming 20 more watts
is really impressive.
- Remember, that extra power consumption means
that our cores are boosting higher, and for longer.
This is great. Right?
- Yeah. - I mean, I'm pretty stoked.
- Do you know what's even more impressive?
When we went for lunch we forgot to stop it.
Yeah, it's still fine.
- Under 90.
- It's been running for an hour now,
and before after like 10 minutes it was thermal throttling.
Now it's what? 85 degrees. It's amazing.
- Yeah. 90 on the hottest P-core.
I can really feel the heat comin' off it though.
- [Alex] Oh yeah.
- It doesn't feel like that's just a CPU worth of heat.
I mean, that's what? Holy (beep) 300 watts?
- Yeah.
- That's crazy.
How can you have a CPU pulling three.
Ow, the freakin' VMR heat sink is.
Where's my thermal camera?
- Oh yeah, I guess there's no fans pointed at that
'cause it's just a test bench.
- Yeah, well I didn't think
it was gonna be pushin' 300 flippin' watts.
- Those poor VRMs are putting
like 250 amps through them right now.
- The PCB is at 72 degrees.
What?
What are you? Oh, network switch. UPS. A power brick.
I need to take this thing home
and just play with it with my kids.
This thing is so cool.
- [Alex] Alright, do you wanna run a couple more tests?
- I'd love to.
BMW's a pretty short blender render though, hey?
- Yeah, but it allows us to see
if it runs faster in thermal velocity boost range.
- Mm, right.
- So, 1 minute 28 to beat,
and the maximum temp was 95 degrees.
It's really fast, yeah. - It's really fast.
- [Brandon] So that there is about 10 degrees better.
- Oh yeah, I guess that's a good point, Brandon.
That actually is 10 degrees better as advertised.
Here it is. 75 versus 82 degrees.
Okay, only eight degrees, but that's at higher power draw.
So wait, if it's higher power draw
was the result even any different though?
- [Alex] It was one second better.
- One second faster.
But then by the time you're spending $800 on your CPU,
you're probably spending a total of around 3 grand,
3,500 on the whole machine,
what's another 40 bucks for one second better?
- And you could over clock it now.
There's enough head room that if we want.
- Do we go for 5.6?
- I don't see why not.
- Do we have XTU on here?
- Yeah, of course we do.
XTU shows us just how good this CPU has binned.
I have the same profile
that's pretty much exactly the same clocks
as this was stock,
and that was pulling about 350, 400 watts.
- Should I just push everything up 100 megahertz
and see what happens?
- Yeah.
(Linus gasping)
Current limited.
So we're gonna need to up our voltage a bit.
Do 0.1, that's pretty safe.
- It's amazing how close to the sun Intel
is flying with this thing.
I just wanna see if it actually hits that frequency.
- [Alex] No, it's slower.
- Okay, definitely gonna take some fine tuning
to get this thing to run any faster than stock,
but it's cooler.
Alright, you wanna do a game test?
- [Alex] Yeah.
For our tests I chose "Shadow Of The Tomb Raider"
and "Forza," just because they give you
what the CPU is out outputting.
'Cause this CPU's so fast
that everything's GPU bound pretty much.
- That is some killer coil whine on this 3090 TI.
(Linus mocking coil whining)
I mean, that's what happens when we have 450 watt,
or it's rumored they could be even higher
for the next gen GPUs.
- This computer, legitimately, if you have bad,
not up to code wiring in your house, it might burn down.
- But look at these reflections. 110 FPS.
- That's exactly the same as before, but it's GPU bound.
We actually got five more FPS on the CPU.
That's a win.
- If we had a faster GPU we'd get five more FPS.
- Yeah.
- And a 378.
- We'll worry about CPU game.
- And 237.
- That's seven FPS higher.
(Linus grunting)
And the average FPS is exactly the same again.
- So there you have it.
If you want every last little bit of performance,
you can buy one of these.
Or if you want almost as good, you could spend way less.
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- If you guys enjoyed this video,
maybe check out this one where we did subzero cooling.
It was fun.