Processors in EU Retail Channel Could Lose “Unnecessary Packaging,” Possibly even Stock Coolers

The EU could influence the mobile phone industry to ditch bundling wall chargers with their phones, and got them to standardize the USB-C connector, with the goal of minimizing the number of wall chargers people would have to own, which could last years, spanning many phones. It even got Apple to ditch its proprietary Lightning connector in favor of USB-C. The European Commission could be turning its attention to the way products such as desktop PC processors are sold in the retail channel. In the OEM channel, things are golden—processors are sold by the 1,000 units in trays that aren’t all that different from the way eggs are sold to restaurants. In the retail channel, these processors put on elaborate packaging material that includes boxes that are about 20 times the size of the processor itself, and include stock cooling solutions that can run the processors at stock settings.

This could change, as the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) came into effect on February 11, 2025. This regulation gives manufacturers an 18-month grace period for compliance, and it affects desktop processor packaging in the retail channel. The first casualty will be special edition or flagship SKUs that come with swanky acrylic packaging, like Intel’s large dodecahedron that shipped with the Core i9-9900K. Intel has already made the switch, and its current flagship, the Core Ultra 9 285K, comes in much simpler paperboard boxes. AMD’s flagship processors also comply, as they come in compact paperboard boxes even for the top Ryzen 9 9950X. Then there’s the issue of stock CPU coolers included in these boxes, at least for the 65 W processor models.

Enthusiast-segment processor SKUs, such as Intel’s K/KF/KS series, and AMD’s X-series (TDP 105 W or higher) already lack stock coolers. The 65 W SKUs from both brands, however, tend to include coolers. PPWR could force processor manufacturers to unbundle this cooler. The cooler could be sold separately at a nominal price for those who really want a no-frills cooling solution to run their chips at stock settings, but it will no longer be in the box. This doesn’t affect the vast majority of the DIY gamer/enthusiast user-base that leaves these coolers in the box untouched, and uses aftermarket coolers.

Both Intel and AMD have made conscious efforts to ensure that CPU cooler compatibility outlasts CPU sockets. Intel’s LGA775 and LGA115x sockets have been legendary examples of this. You could have bought an LGA775 cooler way back in 2003, and used it all the way till 2009. You could then have bought an LGA1156 cooler, and used it well into 2021, spanning LGA1155, LGA1150, LGA1151, and LGA1200 along the way. LGA1700 and the current LGA1851 share cooler compatibility. AMD has cooler compatibility between sockets AM4 and AM5, so your cooler from 2017 can be used in a current platform from 2025. All this presents Intel and AMD with the perfect opportunity to unbundle stock coolers.

EU regulations tend to reach far beyond European borders, as has been the case with smartphones unbundling chargers or standardizing USB-C, and we could see the trend of simpler desktop processor packaging and unbundling of coolers, similarly spread.