Heatsink pressure issue discovered with some AMD Ryzen motherboard backplates

While testing AMD's new Ryzen processor, a Tom's Hardware reviewer discovered that the backplates that are included with motherboards of some major brands pose a heatsink pressure problem.

The reviewer writes that these boards ship with screws that are too long. The screws reach their safety stop too soon, which results in inadequate pressure on the heatspreader of the CPU:

According to our sources, AMD has provided the location of the fastening screws, but not the height of the screw holders. Sinks that use the backplate supplied with the motherboard could pose problems, especially those that have a compatibility kit.

Processor coolers that use their own backplates should not pose a problem but cooling solutions and upgrade kits that use the backplate supplied with the motherboard could run into issues. It's nothing that a couple of washers can't fix but if you're going to build a Ryzen system I would pay attention to this, to ensure your processor gets the cooling it needs and can use eXtended Frequency Range (XFR).

In a statement an AMD representative said: “Our cooler works well and we have shared the platform design guide with NDA partners that includes the clamping force required to correctly mount coolers on the AM4 platform.”