It’s not every day that the worlds of extreme overclocking and PC gaming rub shoulders, but today actually feels like one of those rare occasions. Wes Fenlon, writing for PC Gamer managed to get a few minutes to conduct an interview with veteran extreme overclocker der8auer, known to many of us simply as Roman. Roman is the brain behind the recent spate of delidding tools that have now sprung up on the market, tools that allow overclockers to remove a CPU heatspreader with ease, allowing for easy replacement of the thermal interface material and ultimately lower temperatures. Here’s a wee sample of the in depth interview:

The end goal is simple enough: if you open the CPU successfully, you can replace the thermal compound with something better, lowering your CPU temperature dramatically. It seemed like an arcane art, and for a long time it was; who puts their CPU in a vice and hacks into it with a razor? But in the past year, delidding has gone through a quiet revolution in the hardcore overclocking community, largely thanks to the invention of engineer and pro overclocker Roman Hartung, aka der8auer.

"When Intel started using polymer [thermal interface material] for Ivy Bridge and Haswell, I used a razor blade myself [to delid] and I damaged a CPU," Hartung says. "I'm like, fuck. 300 Euro were gone, and I was like, holy fuck, why is there not an easier way? So I was like okay, maybe I can find a way to do it. I made the very first delid tool about two and a half years ago. I even have a European patent for this."

Catch the full and fascinating interview with der8auer from PC Gamer here.