Touching a CPU

[737748484882484]

I bought an I7 8700k and took it out of the box it was still in the plastic casing and I touched the pins (while it was in the plastic) should it be okay? I didnt touch the pins directly and there is a gap between the plastic casing and the Cpu itself

[dizmo]

So....really, you didn't touch the pins at all.

[KarathKasun]

8700k has no pins.

[WoodenMarker]

The gold contacts are generally called pads. The pins are in the motherboard socket at least for this platform. 

Touching it is fine. It's best to wipe off any skin oils off with a paper towel if you're extra worried. If you didn't actually contact the cpu with your skin, there's nothing to worry about.

[powerplayer75]

2 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

The gold contacts are generally called pads. The pins are in the motherboard socket at least for this platform. 

Touching it is fine. It's best to wipe off any skin oils off with a paper towel if you're extra worried. If you didn't actually contact the cpu with your skin, there's nothing to worry about.

computer components are much more durable than people make them out to be. even if you did touch the pads a the bottom (assuming your hands are clean) it wouldn't affect anything.

[Valley_]

30 minutes ago, AidanO205 said:

I bought an I7 8700k and took it out of the box it was still in the plastic casing and I touched the pins (while it was in the plastic) should it be okay? I didnt touch the pins directly and there is a gap between the plastic casing and the Cpu itself

i7 8700K doesn't have any pins. It has gold pads which generally are ok to touch (doesn't mean go touch them all the time).

The pins you are on about are within the motherboard, definitely don't touch those, they may bend and won't work.

[suchamoneypit]

As others have said, touching the gold contacts really is harmless other than potentially getting oil from your skin on them which you can simply clean off with something like rubbing alcohol. I was very careful and worried like you when I first started getting in computers, its amazing how comfortable you'll get with it over time once you learn how un-fragile most things are.

 

Your motherboard does have pins though, you won't want to touch those for the reason of getting oil on them, and the fact you can actually bend them causing them to lose proper contact with the gold pads on the 8700k. If you do bend them though, it is possible to carefully bend them back into place.

 

More info: Intel CPUs currently use gold pads, which contact gold pins on the motherboard. AMD CPUs currently instead have gold pins which putrude off the CPU itself, and into slots on a socket on the motherboard, almost the opposite style of Intel; and just like your intel socket motherboard, you would not want to bend these pins or get oil on them for electrical conductivity reasons.

[desertcomputer]

45 minutes ago, powerplayer75 said:

computer components are much more durable than people make them out to be. even if you did touch the pads a the bottom (assuming your hands are clean) it wouldn't affect anything.

Even if it does, you can just wipe off any oil/dirt/dust.

[737748484882484]

Thanks so much everyone! I was scared to death. Thought I broke a 350$ CPU lol

[Amazonsucks]

Personally i lick the bottom of every cpu before installing it for good luck

[737748484882484]

On 7/19/2018 at 7:25 AM, Amazonsucks said:

Personally i lick the bottom of every cpu before installing it for good luck

Does it help? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Im joking)

[Cbfbrolol]

On 19/07/2018 at 5:35 PM, AidanO205 said:

Thanks so much everyone! I was scared to death. Thought I broke a 350$ CPU lol

I wish an 8700k cost 350 where im from, they are 550 here and 430 for a 8700