i7 6700k Temps

[JSmit102]

Hello,

I have an i76700k and concerned with my stock temperatures . I am getting 34 to 43c at idle. With spikes up to 50c which quickly return to the 34 to 40 range. Surfing the web it stays about the same. Playing games new games It is reaching to the 50 to 70c. This seems a bit high for me on the idle and surfing temps at stock clocks. There isn't much on the internet due to it being a newer chip. What I saw is most people getting 27c with a liquid cooling setup, even some fan and heat sinks are. I know these aren't critical temps to where they can cause damage, but I plan on over clocking, but afraid to because of these high temperatures.

I have re seated the water block 2 times and going to try a third time after writing this. I am using a NZXT Kraken X61 as my cooler with Noctua Industrial 3k RPM fans, so I don't have many doubts in my cpu cooling system. The case is a NZXT H440 with three 140mm Noctua Industrial 3k RPM fans. A very recent bios came out for my Asus Maximus Hero VIII and updated it hoping it would help. On prime95 I have only done a half hour stress test and it gets no higher than 80c. I only do short tests because I'm not going to be putting this through extreme conditions like that for extended amounts of time in my daily use. I mainly use for games, normal low resource programs like Photoshop. I don't do any video editing, but would like to be able to OC if I ever plan to.

I wouldn't consider myself a novice as I have been building my own computers as well as other's now for 18 years (wow, I'm getting old). Couldn't even tell you how many machines I've built but I would say definitely over 30. I have mainly been using AMD but have had 2 intel chips before and they were problematic. AMD had nothing current so I went with the i7. This has been one of my more extreme setups.

My setup is as follows:

Windows 7 Professional 64bit

i7 6700k Intel CPU

Tuniq TX-4 Thermal paste

Asus Maximus Hero VIII motherboard

Kraken x61 180mm closed loop liquid cooler with 2 Noctua Industrail 3k RPM fans.

Crucial 32GB 4X8 D4 2666 Elite CL Ram

Asus STRIX 980ti Video Card

Asus Xonar STX sound card.

Samsung 840 Pro 256GB Hard drive for OS

Samsung 850 EVO 256GB Hard drive

Western Digital Black 4TB Hard drive

Western Digital Black 2TB Hard drive

Western Digital Blue 1TB Hard drive

NZXT H440 Case with three 140mm Noctua Industrial 3k RPM fans (2 intake, 1 Exhaust not including the ones on my radiator)

CyberPower 1325va Battery backup monitored via USB

USB single foot switch which I use to toggle the microphone

Only the Samsung 840 pro and the Xonar card are not new to this build.

I will list my peripherals even though they may not be relevant:

Asus ROG Swift 144mhz Monitor via display port.

LG 22" 1080p monitor via HDMI

Logitech 6710+ Keyboard

Orico Hard drive docking station USB 3.0

Roccat Mouse bungee with 4 USB inputs

Asus Bluetooth 4.0 Dongle

Logitech G502 Mouse

Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 Dac connected to the optical out of my STX sound card, which goes to my headphone amp. I am not utilizing the USB interface on it.

Wireless XBox controller

Logitech G13 gamepad

Logitech Webcam

To measure my temps I have been using the NZXT Cam software, CoreTemp, and Logitech ARX control. They have all been reading the same numbers give or take a millisecond of each other. These temps just kinda bother me I guess. I had a decked out AMD 8350 rig before this and is now my HTPC and was max OC'ing to 4.6ghz at 1.5v and holding 29 to 31c at idle and wouldn't go above 50c under load using the predecessor to the Kraken x61, the Kraken X60.

Here is a pic of my temps as I write this taken from my desktop.

Thank you for any input.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi chunkluv,

The processor temperature is fine on your processor. It is between 28 and 40 in idle mode.

Now, I noted you are using RAM of DDR4 at 2666MHz. If your RAM is already running at 2666Mhz in the BIOS, the processor is already over clocked, the memory controller is inside the processor.

Verify in the BIOS if processor speed is set as 4.0GHz (4 Cores) and Memories 2133MHz at 1.25v or less.

Regards,

MiKe C

[JSmit102]

Thank you for your response!

I tried a OC of 4.6 too see what the temps would be. The system was stable with just a 3 or 4c increase from my default temps, which seemed odd.

Found some stuff online about my Kraken x61 about it not fitting tight enough on some boards. So, I put some washers on the backplate to shorten the play that the posts have. Tuniq TX4 thermal paste instructions say to spread the TIM evenly over the CPU so I followed the instructions. I'm used to the pea size method, so I went back to that.. Dropped my ram down to 2133MHz and now I am getting, for my setup, the, acceptable default setting idle temps running between 28c to 35c. It was running at 1.24 at default so I didn't make any changes. Going to let it run at this a bit before I start to OC. I usually don't OC until new software/games start showing performance slow downs as time goes by.

[n_scott_pearson]

I have to put this discussion - and these concerns - into perspective. The processor publishes a temperature coefficient, called Tcontrol, for active cooling systems to use in response determination. By definition, the processor can sustain this temperature, for its entire warranted lifetime, without suffering any degradation. For this processor, the Tcontrol temperature is somewhere in the vicinity of 80°C. I thus would not worry about trivial idle temperature differences down in the 30-40°C range and I certainly wouldn't be worried about fully-loaded temperatures in the 50-70°C range.

Now, two other comments:

1. I certainly would not want the fully-loaded temperature to be any higher than this range. Remember that the temperature has a bearing on the processor's turbo boost decision-making. Higher temperatures could mean poorer (or no) turbo boost capability being available.
2. Folks using liquid cooling solutions need to also ensure that other components in the system are not overheating. You need to ensure sure that airflow is sufficient - improving when the system's load is increasing - over all other system components, such that their temperatures are staying at reasonable levels. I have seen situations where the liquid cooling solution is keeping the processor completely happy but the memory is overheating (and eventually failing) due to insufficient overall airflow in the chassis.

...Scott

[Anonymous]

Hi Scott,

Thank you for your great feedback.

Regards,

Mike C