Intel’s 12th gen Core processors have received much fanfare and praise for their performance levels, particularly in comparison to previous generations. However, earlier reports of Alder Lake’s larger LGA 1700 socket creating some concerning compatibility issues have seemingly been confirmed.
An investigation conducted by WCCF Tech sources found that several AIO water coolers are unable to make even contact across the CPU, despite using socket-specific brackets provided by manufacturers in upgrade kits. This is concerning as uneven contact can negatively impact cooling performance, which in turn affects the chips’ ability to maintain higher clock speeds.
This issue appears to affect some cooler designs more than others, with AIOs like the MSI 360R V2 and MSI P360/C360 making perfect contact with the chip while the Aorus Waterforce X360 and ROG Ryugin 360 are troubling imperfect. No prolonged clock speed measurements or thermal metrics were recorded but it’s safe to assume that this would impact a processor’s performance to some degree, especially given Alder Lake’s tendency to run rather hot regardless.
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