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producing chips that would experience "heat death" shortly after the warranty ran out
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You know, "out of the box", even the time where the CPU can turbo (the 'normal' turbo speed) is limited to a few seconds, along with other calculations that are done to keep the CPU constantly within TDP, thermal limits etc.
If you overclock you overwrite all those things of course in addition to supplying more voltage etc.
It's just not an issue, and (as said already) IRONICALLY, in 90% of "real life" circumstances those chips do actually run at "decent" temps. I know it's an oxymoron to say that, but it's just how it is. 75C in a game won't blow up the CPU or shorten its life. From that POV it's not even "less efficient" paste, it actually does its job like intended.
While thanks to the findings of idontcare etc. we KNOW that the high temps under stress are caused by that tiny gap between die and IHS...so it's silly to assume that a company like Intel (who SURE have experience making CPUs did some critical design flaw and then went through to produce the chips, regardless. (Especially a "flaw" they could have been corrected later on with Devil's Canyon but then still didn't because this gap of course still exists).
Also..I *think* we also already established it's not really the quality of TIM which is an issue here... the drying out of the TIM and subsequently failing of CPUs is nothing but a fantasy tale on that blog anyway.