Poor TIM makes Intel Core i9-7900X hard to keep cool

In a new article, Tom's Hardware explores the thermal paste and runaway power mess of the new Intel Skylake-X platform. In particular, the author complains about the lack of overclocking headroom, the poor design choices on many X299 motherboards and the fact that Skylake-X is hard to keep cool because the poor thermal paste under the chip's integrated heatspreader prevents heat from being dissipated effectively.

Observation #2: The dissipation of waste heat is hindered by the CPU's construction and Intel's deliberate decision to use thermal paste between the heat spreader and die. Regardless of how much pressure you use or how cold you can get your heat sink, you'll never realize Skylake-X's potential the way it's currently configured. Intel applies a thermal brake, favoring longevity and sacrificing performance.

Tom's Hardware provides the following chart to illustrate the inadequate heat dissipation provided by Skylake-X's thermal paste. There's a huge difference between the temperature of the cores and the processor's heatspreader because the thermal interface acts as a thermal bottleneck. Enthusiasts have complained about this since Intel moved away from solder to cheaper thermal paste but Intel is quite stubborn about this.