This magic horseshoe could drop your Intel Arrow Lake gaming CPU temps by 3°C

A shifted hot spot means Intel's new Core Ultra 200S CPUs can potentially benefit from moving the cooler location, where this bracket can help.

MSI has shown off a new CPU cooler bracket for Intel Arrow Lake CPUs, which should ensure the new chips achieve the best cooling possible from existing coolers. By employing this new horseshoe-shaped bracket, MSI claims Intel Arrow Lake chips – that’s the new upcoming Intel Core Ultra 200S range – can drop in temperature by as much as 3°C.

We first caught wind of this potential new cooler requirement when a rumor suggested the Intel Arrow Lake hot spot location had changed. That’s the part of the processor that gets the hottest underneath the metal heatspreader that covers the silicon chips. With Intel‘s new Arrow Lake CPUs expected to have a shifted hot spot compared to older Raptor Lake processors, buyers of the company’s latest best gaming CPU contenders will benefit from getting a bracket such as this one from MSI.

The idea behind this little horseshoe-shaped piece of plate metal is that it shifts the mounting position of MSI’s new MAG Coreliquid A15 360 and MAG Coreliquid i360 AIO coolers so that they sit in an optimal position directly over the hot spot of the CPU. The coolers are otherwise compatible with both Intel LGA1700 and LGA1851 (the new Arrow Lake socket), as well as AMD AM4 and AM5 sockets. However, the offset bracket could help shave off those few extra degrees compared to the default plate position.

While it’s MSI that demonstrated this particular offset bracket to attendees of a recent showcase of its new Intel motherboards, many other cooler manufacturers will no doubt be offering their own versions. In fact, MSI didn’t itself commit to selling this bracket separately to upgrade its existing coolers, when asked about it by tech site Club 386, from whom this bracket image is taken.

This idea of shifting the position of cooler contact plates for optimal cooling isn’t entirely new, but is one that has seen wider adoption in recent years as CPUs have exploded in overall power output, while the hottest parts of the chips have also shrunk thanks to newer manufacturing techniques. As such, offset mounts have long been available for various different CPUs across a variety of cooler designs.

Moreover, we’ve even seen some cooler manufacturers create coolers with varied cooling plates, meaning that any given cooler is only ideal for use with certain processors. We saw this with the recent launch of the new Noctua NH-D15, which comes in three different types, each of which has a slightly differently shaped base.

When Intel Arrow Lake was announced, the company said that existing LGA1700 CPU coolers would work with the new chips, but that it advised checking in with your cooler manufacturer to make sure it could cool the new CPUs effectively. Since then, several cooler companies have already guaranteed several existing designs will work with Arrow Lake, including Corsair and Noctua.

For those looking to buy a new Intel Arrow Lake CPU and a cooler to go with it, though, you might want to make sure you check the fine print to ensure your new cooler is optimized for your shiny new CPU.

If you’re looking for recommendations here, check out our best CPU cooler guide, though be sure to check the manufacturer’s website for each option to see if it’s guaranteed to work with the new LGA1851 Intel CPU socket.