High Operating Temperature of Core i7-2600k?

[PWert]

I have been running Prime95 (not the torture test) for 24 hours using Intel board DH67CL and a boxed CPU i7-2600k. Windows Task Manager indicates CPU usage about 50%. Turboboost runs at a steady 3.5ghz. IDU indicates processor temperature of fairly steady 77-79 deg C with fan speed ranging from 1205 to 1318rpm.

Is it normal for the temperature of the CPU to run at the top end of the operating range when the CPU usage is only 50%?

Thanks in advance for feedback. Peter

[DSilv11]

Yes

&

No

Most mother board manufactures try to balance the fan speed very tightly to provide a quite computer.The slower the fan,. the less the noise and the hotter the CPU.

I personaly prefer a little more noise and a cooler CPU.

The value your reading is Tcore which can be normally up to 10 deg hotter that Tcase.

The spec. on this CPU for Tcase max is 72.6C

Personally, I like to see my Tcore not exceed the Tcase max to make sure I have headroom before the CPU goes in to Thermal throttling.

This is not a mother board or CPU I have played with yet, but I would recommend checking the heatsink mounting (sometimes one corner of the heat sink does not snap in fully) Check your fan connections and operation, and make sure you are placing the system were it can get good air flow. (desk draws are a bad idea ),

My general rule of thumb is: -- idle 35-50 deg -- moderate load 40- 60 deg. heavy load 55 -80 deg.

Since your still in turbo boost, it not throttling, but you r hotter than I would like to be.

Perhaps some one with more direct experience with this board can post some temps for comparison?

[PWert]

Doc and parsec - Thank you both for responding. It is reassuring to a newbie like me to know help is only a few clicks away!

I have a full tower case with three 230x30mm fans and one 140x23mm fan plus the cpu fan. The ambient temp outside the case is 65F and there is good air flow around the case. The exhaust air from the case feels cooler than that outside the case. I am using the stock cooler that came packaged with the i7-2600k and onboard graphics. (No graphics card). The default BIOS settings are in use for the CPU. The CPU fan, the rear fan and the front fan are connected to the motherboard. The top and side fans are connected to the power supply. All seem to be operating normally. Additionally there is one optical and two hard drives along with a power supply (with its own fan).

The CPU temp indicated by the IDU are 26-29 with no load. 32-38 at a 30% load and 77-79 at a 50% load. All CPU temps are degrees C. As mentioned previously, the turbo boost is a steady 3.5ghz.

Based on your responses and knowing it is better to be safe rather than be sorry, I have ordered an after market air cooler. I am wondering if with the new cooler installed the turbo boost will increase the speed and therefore, the heat, and we will be operating in the same temperature range at a higher speed.

If you have additional comments, please send them along. Thanks again for your advice. Regards. Peter

[PWert]

I replaced the stock cooler with a cooler master hyper 212 plus and cpu temps have decreased from the 77-79 degrees C I was experiencing to 57-58 degrees C under the same load. One thing that does puzzle me is where the cpu was running in turbo boost at the higher temps, the cpu is now running at a steady 3.4ghz. Peter

[idata]

No Turbo? That is a bit curious, did you reset/clear your BIOS? Did you remove the CPU when you changed coolers? The main thing to check is the BIOS settings to see if Turbo in enabled. Also with some hardware monitoring programs, they don't update themselves fast enough to catch changes, but you were seeing them before, right? What are you using to monitor the CPU's speed/frequency?

[PWert]

I did remove the CPU to clean off the thermal paste and kept the socket covered while it was out. Turbo is enabled in BIOS. This A.M. I noted the Intel processor ID utility indicated the reported CPU speed is 3.49mhz. The Intel Turbo Boost Tech monitor indicates 3.5 now! Looking good. Thanks for your help Parsec.

[idata]

Peter, Glad all is going well. The normal Turbo boost frequency for your CPU is up to 3.8GHz, so you should see that occasionally, and that frequency can be adjusted up or down depending upon the BIOS/UEFI.

[idata]

Your CPU temperature is dependent on many things. Considering hardware, the type of CPU cooler is the main variable. Are you using the standard CPU cooler provided with the i7-2600K? Given your temperature readings, that is quite possible.

Next is your PC's case and it's ventilation, how many and what size fans does it have? If the air within the case is warm from the CPU and other components, then that is the air used to cool the CPU. The warmer that air is, the more difficult it will be for the CPU cooler to lower the CPU's temperature.

Since your mother board has a H67 PCH chip, you may be using the CPU's onboard graphics. That will increase the CPU's temperature, and the greater the load on the graphics, the higher the temperature increase. Using a separate graphics card removes that factor, but the card itself adds quite a bit of heat to the case, and usually being close to the CPU, aggravates that factor somewhat, and could be worse than using the standard graphics.

Running Prime95 or any stress test for 24 hours is actually an unusual situation for any desktop PC. It is unusual for a CPU to be running at 50% load for 24 hours compared to the average usage model of typical people. The standard CPU cooler provided by Intel is not intended for long term use at 50%+ loads, it does keep the CPU beneath it's maximum temperature, but better coolers exist.

The standard maximum Turbo frequency for your CPU is 3.8GHz, from the standard non-Turbo i7-2600K CPU frequency of 3.4GHz. If you are seeing 3.5GHz, then Turbo has throttled back almost to nothing, assuming that your BIOS settings for the CPU are set at default or Auto. At the temperatures you are experiencing, Turbo functioning seems normal, again assuming standard BIOS settings.

More information is needed to provide a decent evaluation, such as idle CPU temperature, and your PC's configuration as I mentioned above. If you are comparing these temperatures to previous PC's and CPUs you have used, that may not be valid, since the architecture, performance, and many other factors have changed with these new CPUs, and in my experience they react differently, meaning they become hotter faster, but also cool quicker.

[idata]

What is the normal operating temperature range for the Sandy Bridge Core i7-2600K? I am getting a high reading of around 68degrees C when rendering video files.

Thanks,

Kim

[DSilv11]

The spec. on this CPU for Tcase max is 72.6C

The value your reading is Tcore which can be normally up to 10 deg hotter that Tcase.

Personally, I like to see my Tcore not exceed the Tcase max to make sure I have headroom before the CPU goes in to Thermal throttling.

Your in a good area

[idata]

Hi Kim, "What is the normal temperature...", you ask, that depends on what normal is to you. Video rendering puts an above average demand on a CPU, certainly more than using the Internet, watching a video, or creating text files. That does not mean it is bad for your CPU and you should not do it, but just be aware of it, as you are, research it, again as you are, and perhaps do something to improve your CPU's temperature.

As Doc said, given your usage that temperature is not bad. If you'd like some more information, tell us what kind of PC you have, an all-in-one that you purchased, or did you build it yourself? What are you using to monitor your CPU's temperature?

[idata]

Thanks for the info.

Parsec, my PC is a build, my first. I am using a CoolMaster HAF X case, 16GB of RAM, a CoolMaster CPU cooler system without the second fan installed, it blocked the RAM slots. I encoded four hours of HD video over the weekend and the am using Core Temp to measure the CPUs operating temps. The encoding ran the temp up to around 62-65 degrees C. When running CPU intensive Photoshop filters, the temp goes into the 50 degree range for a short peroid. However, encoding can keept the CPU in the 60's for as much as a couple of hours. I am assuming that this behavior is normal and that running the CPU for an hour or two in the 60's isn't determental.

Thanks again for your feedback Parsec and Dr_Slivercreek>

[MBane]

Hi,

I am also using a core i7 2600k,my specifications are :

Intel core i7 2600K, 3.4GHz with stock cooler

Asus Sabertooth P67 motherboard Corsair XMS3 Ram 4GB (2*2GB) 1600MHz, DDR3 Nvidia GTX 460, 1GB GDDR 5 graphics card Corsair 450 VX (450W) PSU

The CPU temperature varies from 42 degree to 82 degree (Celsius) , my ROOM temperature is around 37 degree (Celsius)

at 0% CPU load it is 42 degrees (Celsius) 

at 50% CPU load it is 58 degrees (Celsius)

at 100% CPU load it is 82 degrees (Celsius)

Are these temperatures okay given that my room temperature being 37 degrees. (I have reinstall the heat sink (thermal paste) but still I am getting the same temperatures.)

Please help

[idata]

mahan, Given your hardware and environment, the temperatures you experience are to be expected and are not unusual. Given your room temperature is about 37C, which is a smokin' hot 98.6F (I hope that is not all the time!) your CPU temps are really not bad at all. Your room temperature is the determining factor here, and will also be the limiting factor regardless of CPU cooler. A higher performance model of CPU cooler would help somewhat, but it is not possible to achieve temperatures lower than your room temperature, without some type of artificial cooling, meaning air conditioning.

Frankly, given your environment, your cooling is good, you must have a good case with many fans. If your PC usage keeps your CPU usage at 50% and above, you should use a high performance CPU cooler. Your CPU temps are only rather high at or near 100% usage, and the CPU will protect itself by shutting off if it gets to hot. You likely should try some type of liquid cooling for your CPU, or one of the best air coolers, which is the only way you will lower your CPU temps during high usage, but at lower loads it won't improve very much, since your environment is sooo hot!

[MBane]

Thank you very much Parsec

Actually I have also used a core i5 2500k in the same ambient of 37 degree (Celsius), but it shows rather lower temperatures than the Core i7 2600k CPU.

Are the default operating temperatures of 2600k higher than that of the 2500k ?

[idata]

mahan, In order to make a true comparison, both CPUs must be used in identical PCs, otherwise differences in the case and it's cooling ability, different hardware, and the programs used will cause the CPUs to be in different environments.

Otherwise if you simply changed CPUs in the same PC, there is a reason for the temperature differences between the i7-2600k and the i5-2500k. Although both of these CPUs are 95W TDP devices, and their standard clock and Turbo speeds are very close, the main difference between them is the i5-2500k does not have Hyper Threading. The i5-2500k is a 4C / 4T (4 Core / 4 Thread) CPU, while the i7-2600k is a 4C / 8T CPU. Having two threads running on a core is more work and stress put on the core, and it becomes warmer. If Hyper Threading is disabled (in the BIOS) on a CPU that has this feature, the CPU temperature will go down up to 10C under high usage/stress situations. Enthusiasts that over clock their CPUs will sometimes disable Hyper Threading in order to lower the CPU temperature that has increased due to their high over clock.

You can try this yourself if your BIOS allows you to disable Hyper Threading on your i7-2600k. The effect of doing that will be more noticeable during high CPU load situations, rather than at idle. So it is not a simple, straightforward situation that the i5-2500k has a lower default operating temperature than the i7-2600k. The Hyper Threading feature of the i7-2600k makes a significant difference.

[MBane]

Thanks once again Parsec

As you have advised, I have disabled the HT in BIOS and then did a load simulation (by Real temp & Prime95).

Previously when the HT was enabled I got max 83 degree centigrade at 100% CPU load.

But this time with HT disabled I got max 75-77 degree centigrade with 100% CPU load

Is it okay ?

(As you have told the CPU should be 10 degree lower at max load with HT disabled)

[idata]

mahan, In my earlier post, I said up to 10 degrees C decrease, not exactly 10C. Your result is quite normal, given your high room temperature.

There are two reasons for your high, although not very unusual processor temperature, which is using the standard Intel CPU cooler, and your high room temperatures. The only way you can lower it is with a new CPU cooler. Also, Prime95 puts a very stressful load on a CPU, which is different than any regular program. When you read about lower CPU temperatures when running Prime95, those people all use fancy CPU coolers, and they are not living in climates where the room temperature is 35C.

Given all your conditions, the temperatures you get are normal. Your CPU is working fine. Any PC with any CPU cooler that was in your house would have higher CPU temperatures. The only way to get lower temperatures is to get a very high performance CPU cooler, and cool down your house.

[DSilv11]

The MAX TDP defines how much power a processor can consume which is directly linked to how hot it might get. (95W and 72.6 deg Tcase max in both cases)

However, this is a maximum. Individual processors with in the same S-SPEC will vary slightly and more so between different SKUs.

The mother board monitors voltage, current and tempeature and throttles the processors based on these values.

Some lots of chips will be more effecent than others which result in less heat for the same power.

.

[MBane]

Once again thanks a lot Parsec.

Your advices helped me a lot.

[idata]

mahan, You are welcome, I hope you are feeling better about your processor.

I re-checked a PC of mine with Prime 95 (I prefer Intel's Linx, but one is not better than the other) the lastest version is 26.6. If you were running an "In-place large FFTs" stress test, with eight threads for at least 15 minutes, with the standard Intel CPU cooler with an ambient temperature of 37C, and your maximum CPU temperature is 83C, then that is really not bad at all. You shouldn't be worried your CPU is not working correctly at all, many people using the standard Intel CPU cooler when running Prime95 see temperatures up to 90C, and that is at a lower room temperature than yours.

I should also say that it is not a good idea to run a CPU at 80C or more for long periods of time. Although the CPU will protect itself and shutdown if it over-heats, 80C is hotter than your CPU's "Maximum Tcase" temperature of 72.6. As Doc SilverCreek pointed out in his post, the thermal (heat) limit of a CPU is really dependent upon the combination of it's temperature and the amount of electrical power it is using. Although running Prime95 for 24 hours or more is popular with over-clockers to "prove" their PC is stable when over-clocked, they rarely mention the number of CPUs they have ruined doing that. A PC running at 45C is much more impressive to me than one that is dead, but reached a high over-clock at 90C. Which one would you rather have?