Before you Delidd your I9 - 9900K

Please watch this video before you plan on delidding your 9900K

 

In addition to the video, I would encourage visiting the following link for more detail that may not be in the video:

www.gamersnexus.net/guides/3381-intel-9-9900k-delid-liquid-metal-5-4ghz-overclock

"Liquid metal's surface tension requires it to have an opposing surface that is also coated in liquid metal, an depth differentials could throw-off the contact and increase likelihood of air gaps between the liquid metal."

Steve also offers the following caution:

"We'd only recommend delidding to people who are pushing for high clocks, competitively overclocking, or are so neurotic about noise that an extra couple degrees and 200 RPM reduction in fan speed might be meaningful."

Personally, I'm OK with delidding non-soldered CPUs. I'm not as comfortable with having to grind the die to get the optimal thickness. I'd rather invest in a sexy custom-loop, watch the coolant flow, and be mesmerized by my little train engine that thought it could get all the way up the hill without melting down to China.

 

This is just showing, that like AMD, is delving into overclocking headroom to achieve higher performance at stock speed bins. These days of huge performance gains by overclocking are disappearing.