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The strong pressure warps the CPU and can further damage the motherboard as well by pushing into the pins. PCGamesHardware points out that specifically coolers from Scythe such as the Ninja 4 CPU cooler recently reviewed here at Modders-Inc as well as their Ashura, Fuma, Grand Kama Cross 3/4, Mugen, and Mugen MAX are affected.

Warped Skylake CPU due to Heatsink pressure (Photo: PCGamesHardware.de)

More to read at the link: http://www.modders-inc.com/psa-cooler-mounts-can-damage-skylake-cpus/

I bet noctua mounts are fine, as well as any other vendors that use spring-shrouded screws that prevent you from over-tightening the mount once the coils are all touching.

Granted, those designs won't stop someone boneheaded determined to keep torquing until they crush the motherboard pcb or strip all the threads

Yeah, this shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone in the business of making waterblocks or heatsinks for these CPUs. There's spec sheets around listing the forces required for adequate heat transfer and whatnot that anyone can access, and there's only so much people can do to make things bonehead-proof, because there's always going to be a better bonehead.

Redocbew wrote:

...and there's only so much people can do to make things bonehead-proof, because there's always going to be a better bonehead.

Hey!! I represent that remark.

Wow, everything old really is new again. Anyone else remember when Tt GoldenOrbs were grinding and cracking shiny new Athlon dies?

Yeah, that was because there was no heatspreader or shim around the core to prevent the heatsink from being seated off-level, and the retention mechanism on that socket really did suck.

It always felt like a test of reflexes to secure the clamp on the socket without the screwdriver slipping and punching a hole in the PCB.

Athlon dies being crushed wasn't the only issue. Motherboards were being gouged from a slip of the flat head screwdriver, plastic clips broken off the socket and this one:

We did not damage our test CPU during installation - but we damaged the test motherboard (Abit KT7-RAID) during deinstallation. When we uninstalled the heatsink, the clip crushed the small SMD capacitors right next to the socket and broke them off the board. The capacitors BC92, BC93, BC94 and BC100 were damaged or broken off: