Silicon Lottery closes
Silicon Lottery, the go-to service for professional delidding and golden sample CPU acquisition, has announced that it will close its business by the end of next month. After seven years of offering its unique services to the world, Silicon Lottery cites the reduction in CPU overclocking margin, the increasing use of thermal welding as a standard option, and market changes as the reasons for its decision to close the store. The closure will be effective from October 31st, while customers wishing to "delid" their CPUs have until November 30 to send their chips for processing.Credit: AMD The margin reduction of overclocking on the latest processor families from both AMD and Intel appears to be a major cause behind Silicon Lottery's closure. Both companies have aggressively improved their boost algorithms to enable sustained clock speeds and higher bursts. At the same time, both AMD and Intel have increased the base clocks on their products to offer better performance out of the box, which also reduced the overall overclocking headroom.
Another important factor is that manufacturers themselves (and particularly Intel) have aggressively resorted to binning as a way to expand their product portfolio: Silicon Lottery cites the case of 11900K, which it is essentially a binned 11700K which means there are diminishing returns in selection for any tangible benefits from overclocking. Another proverbial nail in Silicon Lottery's corporate coffin is that both AMD and Intel are now employing solder-based TIM (Thermal Interface Material) on their CPUs, which not only reduces the thermal improvement that can be achieved by the delidding process, but also makes it a high-risk process: CPUs may have been torn apart along with their heat sinks by less cautious delidders.
If the sensible business decision for the company today is to shut down, maybe a tomorrow the market and technological fluctuations will be able to lay the foundations to make it resurrect.