[dukezzz]

Noctua recommends mounting their cooler so that the center is shifted toward the lower part of the CPU. From your picture with the thermal paste, it’s clear that your cooler is only making contact with about two-thirds of the CPU, meaning you mounted it incorrectly. The cooler’s contact area must always cover the entire CPU; otherwise, you reduce heat transfer capacity. On top of that, you’re already using an undersized cooler for this CPU. I think you don’t understand the basics of thermodynamics.

[ndiddy]

Welcome to Hacker News! I'm glad my comment encouraged you to join the site.

I didn't write the article, I was just commenting because other users seemed to miss information that was written in it.

The picture with the thermal paste shows that paste was squeezed out from the entire perimeter of the CPU, so the cooler is making contact with the whole CPU. The paste is squeezed thinner near the lower side of the CPU because that's where the mounting pins are located, meaning that's where the mounting pressure is the strongest. The impression left by the thermal paste matches the diagram on Noctua's site ( https://noctua.at/pub/media/wysiwyg/offset/heat_cooler_base_... ).

Noctua lists the NH-U9S cooler as being compatible with the 9950X, and claims it has "medium turbo/overclocking headroom", see https://ncc.noctua.at/cpus/model/AMD-Ryzen-9-9950X-1831 . I'm not sure how they come up with their compatibility ratings, but I generally trust Noctua knows what they're doing when it comes to CPU cooling.

It's also important to note that the author only tried the offset mount after they had a CPU die when the cooler was mounted centered on the CPU.

Overall, I think it's unlikely that these failures can be blamed on poor cooling.

[spoaceman7777]

i'm not sure what image you're looking at, but the picture in question here most certainly shows a CPU that did not have a properly mounted heatsync (to a very severe degree)