[pHaestus]

"and if grooving the CPU is a deal-breaker, we should probably let this be and consider it a higher-end testing activity"

Hmm I thought avoiding higher end testing activity was the whole point?

For AMD you can tap into the diode like I do. Works ok I guess; I see nothing wrong with it anyway (lol?). My plan is to get an AMD64 "grooved" on top as per your specs and then publish offsets between die and IHS temps and watch them over time while I'm testing on this platform. Cost of that setup is $100 plus being able to solder and not being skeered to desolder pins from your 939 chip and resolder wires on it.

//edit: HONESTLY my old socketA setup was a pretty good example of a readily attainable test platform for everyone. Nothing too expensive in that package; it worked well enough for general use. It required a lot of fiddling of course and an eye for whether the instrumentation was still working properly I guess.