It has mostly to do with both the TIM+IHS efficiency as well as the die configuration. Intel's CPU have their core rather packed in the center,very close to each other, making heat density a lot higher than AMD who has the core more distributed. In passive mode, this is important— Vincent ANDRE (@VincentAndre_HK) May 24, 2018
This and the fact that AMD uses some kind of solder or liquid metal for its Bristol Ridge APUs (Intel uses a suspicious-looking thermal interface material) and the choice between Intel and AMD has never been so easy.
Update: François Piednoël - principal engineer at Intel for 20 years - disagrees.
let's look at it scientifically: The thermal conductivity of a dice with metal layer on the bottom, Si on the top, if about 100 (for Si), and those cores are pretty close to each other, in any brand case. The amount of power compare to the surface is pretty big when under load— François Piednoël 🇫🇷🇺🇸 (@FPiednoel) May 24, 2018
The Metal layers (heat Conductivity 150 to 200 ) are driving heat faster than the Silicium (H.C 98 to 100), so, you have an hoven effect happening under the Silicium, the heat gets dissipated via the Si (on top), and a thermal pic would show you a pretty uniform Si cover in IR— François Piednoël 🇫🇷🇺🇸 (@FPiednoel) May 24, 2018
It is especially the case when you use passive cooling, the only thing that really matters is the amount of power dissipated and the difference of temperature you can create with your cooling system. Passive cooking usually use heat pipe, with a evaporation process.— François Piednoël 🇫🇷🇺🇸 (@FPiednoel) May 24, 2018
And both AMD and Intel have processor max temperature just about glycol evaporation temperature, so, there are absolutely no difference between the 2 brand to be friendly for fan free cooling, now, the only thing that matter is how much performance per watt you can get.— François Piednoël 🇫🇷🇺🇸 (@FPiednoel) May 24, 2018
Update #2: Vincent's last words.
The metal spread the heat efficiently, that is true, but it is not perfect and more you spread the heat sources, more efficiently you use the conductivity of your metal slab used to cool it. That's why we see an advantage for AMD here— Vincent ANDRE (@VincentAndre_HK) May 25, 2018
On your last sentence, I totally agree with you. Usually we observed that Intel produce the same amount of computing performance with less power dissipation than AMD. Or in other words, 35W burned by Intel do much more than 35W burned by AMD— Vincent ANDRE (@VincentAndre_HK) May 25, 2018
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