how tight is an AM4 cooler supposed to sit?

Qix · February 28

I have an AM5 motherboard but it has the AM4 mounting brackets that means it can mount an AM4 cooler. But when I was trying to mount it, it seemed like there was NO WAY the CPU cooler was going to fit on my CPU without some serious pressure (and I stopped before something broke). My question is how much pressure is expected of an AM4 mounted AIO cooler?

For context, I lost my original AM4 brackets for an AM5 mobo and as such I have no idea if the replacements I got are tall enough for AM4 coolers.

goatedpenguin · February 28

I would not do what your doing, the AM5 CPUs I am certain need way more pressure than the AM4 counterparts I currently don't have the numbers, but what your doing could do some serious damage.

kitnoman · February 28

Personally, I would just test it out. I'll just start with tightening it with hands. Then just, turn on the pc. Even if there's poor contact, the temp shouldn't shoot to 100c that fast. And even if it does goes over 100c and shuts down. That's a feature to protect itself. From their it would just be trail and error of tightening each side. At idle, depending on your AIO and location(ambient tempt), it should anywhere from 40-60c. and fans shouldn't be ramping up too. If it's hitting 80c or above and fans are ramping up(check fan curve too), even if all sides ere already a few turns tightened using an screw driver from hand tightening it, stop.

RONOTHAN## · February 28

2 hours ago, Qix said:

For context, I lost my original AM4 brackets for an AM5 mobo and as such I have no idea if the replacements I got are tall enough for AM4 coolers.

AM5 was specifically designed to have the same dimensions and mounting requirements of AM4, and it was a bit of a controversy because the extra die high caused temps to be significantly worse than they would if they made it a few mm shorter.

Just use the AM5 mounting hardware, it should work as they're trying to meet the same design requirements.

As for how much mounting pressure it needs, we just don't know since AMD doesn't publish socket documentation. If you want to look at Intel's documentation to get a rough idea of how much CPUs are deigned for, the mounting pressure is in the ~200N range (equivalent to a 20kg weight on top of the CPU) for LGA 1155 (the first one I found with pressure numbers given), so they're designed to have a ton of mount force applied by the cooler.

Qix · February 29

Got it. Thanks to everyone, I'll try mounting it again sometime soon and see if maybe I just have to exert some more pressure. Here's to hoping I don't damage anything...