Noctua announces a little novelty with its NM-DD1. Underneath this rather strange reference hides spacers for mounting on AMD’s AM5 socket . More specifically, they enable Direct Die mounting of Austrian heatsinks!
NM-DD1: Direct Die mounting of your Noctua heatsink on socket AM5!
Developed in collaboration with professional overclocker Der8auer, this new system enables you to mount a Noctua heatsink on a Ryzen 7000 delid. As a reminder, delidding is an operation that involves removing the metal capsule from the top of the processor. In the past, this technique was mainly used to change the internal thermal paste in order to gain in temperature.
However, you can also delid your processor in order to fit a direct-die heatsink, i.e. a heatsink placed directly on the processor chips, without an intermediate IHS. The aim is clearly to improve the temperatures obtained on the CPU.
Noctua’s spacers are simply present to optimize the pressure applied to the processor. As the IHS is removed from the CPU, its dimensions also change, and the heatsink can simply no longer come into contact with the processor. To achieve this, spacers are used as intermediate materials between the ventirad mounting tabs and the top of the base. In this way, the base comes into contact with the CPU at an optimized pressure: neither too high nor too low.
What about gains? But be careful!
If you remove the imposing IHS from a Ryzen 7000, the temperature gains are massive. The Austrian brand claims temperatures reduced by 10°C to 15°C. You can even go as low as -20°C by coupling these spacers to an offset mounting kit.
Now, if this sounds tempting, bear in mind that uncapping your CPU involves risks. During the operation, the processor can be severely damaged, rendering it unusable. If, despite everything, you’re tempted by the experience, you should know that the kit is only sold on the Noctua website, at a price of €4.90.
Otherwise, you can print out the whole kit for yourself. Alternatively, you can print the whole thing yourself using the shared STL files. Finally, if you opt for in-house printing, you’ll need four M3x12 screws for the NM-DDS1 and one M4x10 screw for the NM-DDS2. Yes, by increasing the thickness under the mounting tabs, the original screws will be too short!
Here’s the Noctua product sheet!