De-lidding & Speed-binning Examined

👤by Matthew Hodgson Comments 📅26-03-18
Speed-binning
Part of the 8Pack promise is to ensure that the CPU you are purchasing is guaranteed to work at a given frequency. There are some caveats, but they’re perfectly reasonable. All Ian asks is that the user is running a high-end motherboard, such as an ASUS Maximus, AS-Rock Taichi, Gigabyte Gaming 7 or something of that calibre, along with a 240mm all-in-one watercooling loop, to ensure the chip is adequately cooled.

All of the speed-binned chips are de-lidded to ensure thermals are kept as low as possible, and to increase the overclocking headroom where possible. They’re then run through a stringent testing procedure which involves stressing the CPU using known, good values, in terms of voltages and frequencies. As the CPUs fail to reach each specific grade, they’re then tested extensively at their current “bin level” to ensure they’re 100% stable.



Only a small percentage of CPUs achieve 8Pack’s highest tier, roughly 5%, so the Silicon Lottery is real. His latest 8700K binning process offers chips guaranteed at 5.2GHz, a massive 1.5GHz above the stock clocks, and 0.5GHz above the maximum turbo frequency of the processor.

You can check out 8Pack’s range of speed-binned CPUs here.

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