OK I am talking in Pro/Chat with Scott.
I think I might have what is the best solution for me:
1) Test a waterblock with IHS
2) Pop off IHS and retest
3) Fiddle with the CPU until I hit upon a method to reliably reaffix the IHS in a way that yields similar temps to (1) but the IHS separates from the CPU when I change coolers so I don't destroy my CPU.
There are a lot of advantages to this:
I could put a TC into the IHS and then get tim joint estimates
I get better CPU diode temps than you can from any motherboard
I don't destroy my CPU within a week or so
I don't have to argue with the die sim folks
I get the flexibility of choosing whether to test bare core or IHS
Is there a disadvantage?
It might take some fiddling to get the IHS back on totally reproducibly
It is an alteration from a pristine CPU (but so was
this right?)