You can still fuck up the connector on the motherboard, and consequently, the CPU. I'm speaking from experience: I had to replace a motherboard and a CPU. I still have the useless i7-870 as a sort of trophy of my ignorance of those pin-less CPUs (it was my first). Edit: actually, I remember now that the initial motherboard had a manufacturing problem on its socket, but as that was my first, I didn't know, and that led me to try and fail blatantly, killing both the motherboard and the CPU ; I only realized when seeing the new motherboard with a non-busted socket.

Now when you hear crunch, it's coming from the flexing motherboard that's mounted on just 2 raised screw holes.

Pro tip: Assemble the cpu/heatsink/ram/nve on the table surface then put the whole thing in the case. No flexing :)

This has been my method for a while, but the last 2 PC's I've build have had fan/power connectors in places that I simply can't get my hand too once the board is installed, leading to me either pulling out case fans, or even CPU coolers, just to connect a 4 pin CPU power lead.

Double check your hand will fit in the thing first!

It's been like that on Intel since at least 2006 with the release of LGA 771. AMD CPUS still have pins though.

The Threadripper I put in last week begs to differ