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AMD Ryzen 5 7400F hits thermal limit at stock TDP thanks to inadequate IHS thermal paste

AMD Ryzen 5 7400F IHS thermal paste causes overrheating
The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F appears to use thermal paste instead of solder under the IHS to cut costs. (Image source: AMD)
It looks like AMD has cut some corners when it comes to the Ryzen 5 7400F. A recent review indicates that the unsoldered CPU heat spreader combined with mediocre TIM between the CPU die and heat spreader result in significant overheating and throttling.

AMD quietly launched the Ryzen 5 7400F as a six-core Zen 4 CPU in late January as a budget alternative to the more modern Zen 5, Ryzen 9000 CPUs. The initial launch has been limited to China, and a recent review on Bilibili indicate that AMD may have cut some corners in order to achieve its low price. 

According to the review, the AMD Ryzen 5 managed to hit its thermal limit in its stock thermal configuration of just 65 W. This led to an investigation confirming that non-soldered thermal interface material was used between the CPU heat spreader and CPU die. This is a pretty stark departure from the regular approach taken by AMD for its Ryzen series. Apart from G-series CPUs, like the Ryzen 7 8700G (curr. $254.99 on Amazon), all previous AMD Ryzen CPUs have featured soldered IHS designs. 

The solder has previously been shown to drastically improve thermal conductivity compared to regular thermal paste, and the 7400F more or less proves this once again. 

The reviewer paired the Ryzen 5 7400F with a 360 mm DeepCool AIO and DDR5-6000 RAM, and he tested the CPU in Cinebench R23 to evaluate thermal and compute performance. Despite very nearly matching the Ryzen 5 7500F in terms of performance, the Ryzen 5 7400F quickly reached its 95° C TJMax during the benchmark, even jumping as high as 105° C in one occasion when boosting to 98 W.  

After double-checking that the AIO was making adequate contact with the CPU's IHS, he delidded the CPU, removing the IHS to find only thermal paste conducting heat away from the CPU. 

One potential explanation for the lack of solder under the IHS is as a cost-cutting measure. It can also help prevent CPU die cracking as a result of thermal expansion and contraction, but that is unlikely to be the case on such a low-power CPU. 

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is a more capable alternative to the 7400F and retails for $149 on Amazon

This Bilibili user's Ryzen 5 7400F reached 105° C under a Cinebench R23 workload. (Image source: Bilibili)
This Bilibili user's Ryzen 5 7400F reached 105° C under a Cinebench R23 workload. (Image source: Bilibili)
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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2025 02 > AMD Ryzen 5 7400F hits thermal limit at stock TDP thanks to inadequate IHS thermal paste
Julian van der Merwe, 2025-02- 7 (Update: 2025-02- 7)