Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

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Cod
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Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by Cod » Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:40 am

Last night I ran some stress test with Intel Burn Test and recorded the temperatures and fan speeds. My setup is a standard clocked i5-3570K w/ Asus P8Z77-M Pro. A stock CPU cooler with 3 Silverstone 120mm case fans. For the CPU specifically, I got the following numbers (in Celsius):

No-to-Little Load: 34-degrees (average)
Standard full load: 94-degrees (highest)
High full load: 95-degrees (highest)
CPU Fan Speeds: 2051 rpm max
Case fan speeds: 1100-1185 rpm max

The motherboard hovered between 28-29 degrees the entire time, which is nice. I have some concerns about the CPU cooling, but it may be because I'm new at the silencing / cooling game. So is 90+ degrees something to be concerned about? Or is that normal when a CPU is under full load / stressed?

Any advice/thoughts are greatly appreciated.

MikeC
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by MikeC » Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:12 am

If you're citing the correct CPU temp, that's really hot. In comparison, our i7-3770 on an Intel DZ-77GA70K board with a Scythe Kabuto CPU cooler gave us 45C rise over ambient -- our ambient is typically under 25C, so that's under 70C. See third table here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1259-page4.html

That stock cooler of yours might be poorly seated... or maybe it just needs to be replaced with a better cooler.

Cod
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by Cod » Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:40 am

Thanks for the insight MikeC. When I was running the stress test I was using AI Suite II to monitor all the sensors and temps. The average temp during the stress testing was 86-degrees. The max temps were only seen for approximately 2-3 seconds. Also, I had the video card fans turned off in order to get an accurate reading on the CPU / case temps. Would the two fans on the GPU provide anything for the CPU? I know they help keep the mobo temperature down by a degree (27-degrees when running), but nothing significant.

You mentioned the cooler's seating. Should I have added more thermal paste to the stock cooler? I know the stock Intel coolers come with thermal paste already applied to ease installation, but if I need to I will remove the cooler and apply some thermal paste. I was thinking about getting a Big Shuriken (SBSK-2100), but worried I'll lose a RAM slot. Stinks that I'm limited to 70mm height :(

I should note that the system ran all the test fully without any issues. So at least I know the system is stable...that's a good thing. Thanks again for the words.

HFat
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by HFat » Sat Jun 30, 2012 8:17 am

You have a powerful CPU which is known for being somewhat difficult to cool. But your load temperatures still seem surprisingly high to me.

My guess (and it's nothing more than a guess) is that your CPU heatsink is improperly seated. Intel's stock thermal paste should have been adequate, assuming you did provide the required pressure.
It's of course possible these readings are bogus. I don't know what stock heatsink comes with your CPU but while the stock heatsinks aren't the best, I doubt Intel shipped it with an inadequate heatsink. You CPU or heatsink might be defective. But none of these explanations seems likely considering your low idle temperatures.

I would not worry too much about the CPU. Yours is apparently supposed to withstand temperatures up to 105C.
But a hot CPU will heat up your motherboard. When you say your motherboard remains cool, you're only talking about a sensor (which may not even be accurate). Temperatures can vary quite a bit when you look at different locations and components on the motherbaords. So I would in general be concerned about the temperatures you're seeing.
But maybe your motherboard manufacturer took the high load temperatures of the more powerful Ivy Bridge CPUs into account when designing the boards. If the board's documentation does not cover this, ask tech support!

If your heatsink is in fact seated properly...
If you don't want to touch anything, consider looking for some software which can lower your CPU's speed if it gets hot or underclocking (depending on what you want to do with this computer). Clever software should even allow you to overclock while keeping temperatures resonable.
But a heatsink upgrade would of course be a better solution.

You can't call a CPU stable just because it passes a short test by the way.

mkk
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by mkk » Sat Jun 30, 2012 8:53 am

Check that the fastening push pins are all firmly seated. One should normally be able to give them all a good little tug and they will not budge if they are properly seated.

If the cooler is on right I'd look into the BIOS and make sure that the CPU core voltage has not been raised accidentally. If it's on AUTO then the core voltage should normally not rise much above 1.20V during load test, going by my own i5-3570K for reference. Mine runs stably at 1.10V if set manually.

Cod
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by Cod » Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:17 pm

Thanks for the responses!

HFat, I checked the stock cooler and found that one of the pins was not turned, so that corner was very easy to lift. Once I reinserted and twisted, the cooler felt much stiffer. I booted to the BIOS and the idle temps were roughly the same (34-35 degrees). You mentioned the idle temps looked fine, is ~35 degrees the average for a stock cooler? Or a little high? Regardless, I've decided to look into an aftermarket cooler; however, I'm limited to a 70mm height restriction due to my case (Silverstone GD05). Any suggestions would be valued. As for the stability, I called my system "stable" because I went through 50 Intel Burn Tests without any issues. I plan to give Prime95 a shot next week.

mkk, as I posted earlier, one of the pins wasn't fully fastened. I took a quick glance at the BIOS earlier and noticed it was on auto. If I remember correctly, it was at 1.15 or 1.20.

Thanks again for the comments.

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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by b_rubenstein » Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:25 pm

A couple of things: the Intel Burn Test loads the CPU much more than and application can, so the temps are worst case, and you had a loose heatsink. With the heat sink now properly seated, the only drawback to the stock heatsink is the noise. FWIW, the Intel cooler comes with a thick layer of thermal compound; adding more would hurt, rather than help cooling. The layer of thermal compound should be very thin. It's only supposed to fill in microscopic gaps between the CU case and heatsink.

Cod
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by Cod » Sat Jun 30, 2012 6:36 pm

Thanks for the advice on the thermal paste. I just booted up the computer and was very relieved by the idle temp. The idle temp is now a steady 27-degrees...a drop of 7-degrees. I plan on doing some gaming tonight, so I'll turn on the AI Suite sensors to get an idea of how the temp changes throughout the night.

HFat
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by HFat » Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:40 am

You might not need an upgrade after all but see these tests: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Small_HSF_2012/
In my opinion the "VRM Temperature" is more important to the "CPU temperature" for your CPU. Looking at the numbers, you can see which heatsinks are better than others at cooling the motherboard.

Cod
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Re: Temps During No Load / Full Load, Good or Bad?

Post by Cod » Sun Jul 01, 2012 5:09 am

HFat wrote:You might not need an upgrade after all but see these tests: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Small_HSF_2012/
In my opinion the "VRM Temperature" is more important to the "CPU temperature" for your CPU. Looking at the numbers, you can see which heatsinks are better than others at cooling the motherboard.
From the link, I think I'm going to pick up a Noctua NH-12L since it works very good with the single fan setup. I was debating between the NH-12L and Scythe Big Shuriken 2 Rev. B, but I think the $20 extra may be worth it for the Noctua. Now I hope it works with my video card and RAM...thanks for the article.

Temp Update: After playing Dirt 3, Civ V, and TF2 last night for a combined 3-hours, the CPU temp never rose above 62-degrees. I'm hoping everything is good to go know.

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