# Ideal CPU temps: what's bad and what's good?



## Mighty-Lu-Bu (Sep 13, 2018)

I ran a stress test yesterday for 10 minutes and my CPU managed to reach 64 degrees Celsius. What would be considered ideal and what would be considered more of a danger zone?


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## StrayKAT (Sep 13, 2018)

It depends on the chip. Mine will peak around 64 too on a stress test, but it's a Core-X.. which are pretty hot to begin with.


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## Vayra86 (Sep 13, 2018)

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005597/processors.html






Find your CPU and find these values.

For AMD Ryzen it seems Tjmax is 95C

Anything under is 'safe' - but you need to account for some headroom as ambient temperatures will directly influence load temperatures, virtually 1:1

I personally prefer to keep parts under 80~85C at full load. Both CPU and GPU. While lower is better, the amount of degradation that occurs at high temps is not really ever an issue within the lifetime of a CPU. Temperature lower = better DOES apply to VRM though. I'd say these days its more challenging to safeguard VRM temperatures than it is to worry about CPU temps. Make sure they have airflow.

Inb4 lots of responses about the need to keep CPUs much cooler  <- safe to ignore. 64C is great and it means you can push it further in terms of temps/voltage.


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## thebluebumblebee (Sep 13, 2018)

Take the side panel off of that case and run the test again.


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## 27MaD (Sep 13, 2018)

Vayra86 said:


> I personally prefer to keep parts under 80~85C at full load. Both CPU and GPU.


100% Agree!.


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## infrared (Sep 13, 2018)

As long as you're under TJMax you're fine, lower is better obviously, but where do you draw the line? It's a completely personal and arbitrary decision. Lower temps can help with overclocking (only slightly, unless going sub ambient), but that's more of a performance benefit rather than hardware lifetime benefit, and in that case the added Voltage and Current will have more of a degrading effect than temperature anyway.
As Vayra said, VRM temps are probably more important to keep an eye on.


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## FireFox (Sep 13, 2018)

Unfortunately for me anything above 55c while playing it's a catastrophe and above 70c when doing any stress test i start been paranoid 

But that's just me.


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## Dinnercore (Sep 13, 2018)

Knoxx29 said:


> Unfortunately for me anything above 55c while playing it's a catastrophe and above 70c when doing any stress test i start been paranoid
> 
> But that's just me.



You run positive temps on the celcius scale?! How could you.... Those poor chips won´t last 500 years. 

Joking aside, first of all depends on the product you have and where it measures its temperature to begin with. But anything below 70 °C is likely fine for daily use. The danger zone will be different for different chips and ideal would always be as low as possible.


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## EntropyZ (Sep 13, 2018)

Knoxx29 said:


> Unfortunately for me anything above 55c while playing it's a catastrophe and above 70c when doing any stress test i start been paranoid
> 
> But that's just me.


Indeed, that's where I would draw the line too. In a slim ITX case I get almost 60c, those temps leak onto other components such as the PSU (which have capacitors that would wear out faster due to higher temperatures). I would be comfortable running 60c in a properly cooled case, but that's not really an option for some ITX boxes.

It's worse when I think about the VRM and the voltage control module on the motherboard, since m-ITX ones have components that are packed really closely. I noticed that I have to tone down memory clock speeds and voltage in order to get the system stable during hot summers.

OP: I think it's normal for an R7 1700X to get this hot. That heatsink you are using is a beast and you need it to keep X-type Ryzen chips under good temps.


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## FireFox (Sep 13, 2018)

Dinnercore said:


> anything below 70 °C is likely fine for daily use.



For those users that are not temp Maniacs like me i agree with you, 70c is fine even if i know a few users that run the CPU at 80c and for them it is fine.



EntropyZ said:


> I would be comfortable running 60c in a properly cooled case,



60c while Gaming?


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## EntropyZ (Sep 13, 2018)

Knoxx29 said:


> 60c while Gaming?


In a well ventilated case it could happen, but I haven't got the CPU up that far. So long as the hot air is blown out ASAP, I would be fine with that while gaming. HTPC/Stock coolers don't really have the thermal capacity to run turbo speeds, soon as you hit those, the temps spike a lot.

I have an AIO that I can use, I don't get those temps with that. But mid-range CPU air coolers can struggle if not helped by other case fans.

Now in my Silverstone box, it is a different story. A decent gaming load will put the CPU at a constant 60-65c average even with a full fan setup, the hot air hangs around and isn't being pushed out because it is choked to that point. I did found a way to modify it slightly and incorporate a fan that will blow everything out. It helped drop temps in the ball park of  6-10c range. The PSU is a very happy camper too.

Just a single fan taking out all of that hot air can help immensely when the CPU fan and PSU can't push the hot air through air pressure that they give out.

It's my fault for putting a mid-range chip in what is essentially a HTPC case that has very low volume (surprisingly it is still the best in its class during thermal tests and I'm almost happy with it). I really like the novelty of having a beastly gaming machine in a small form factor. I always dreamed of that, and I got pretty close to that idea. I use the mid-tower when the summer hits like a truck, just so I don't have to deal with the noise.

OP: That Phanteks case doesn't have the best airflow characteristics in terms of mid-tower cases. But I found that the P400S is really damn cheap in comparison. I once found a new one for sale at £40 that's a steal. And you'd pay £50-75 for a quality tower.


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## Tatty_One (Sep 13, 2018)

I consider mine fairly good on a pretty middle of the road 240mm AIO, this after 3 hours solid gaming, 6700K still on summer clocks @ 4.5gig...………………...


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## robot zombie (Sep 13, 2018)

For Ryzen 2, I see 70-75C as ideal for an under air OC. That's under the heaviest possible loads. Linpacks, small ffts, anything AVX heavy.

Tjmax may be 95C but i find stability actually drops stiffly past 80C anyway. Not to mention temps tend to rise more sharply past that. Im pushing up on that with my cooling setup now. The fans max at 70C to hold that 80, so if i push any higher I'm looking at a runaway scenario. Pretty much guaranteed crash. Fine for my uses but impossible to properly stress test. I always base the temperature limit on the heaviest possible burner tests. That way I know I have some margin on the real-world side.

Now... that's absolute max for me. For what I do I never see nearly that. I wouldn't be comfortable pushing that high all of the time. Right now I see peaks of 65 while gaming. But if you look at the plots, those are small peaks. As the load kicks up temps rise to 65 but under that continued load they steadily drop and plateau at 50-55 with little spikes between. At that point my fans are only running at half speed. If the gpu were to max at the same time i might need that headroom to keep it all under control. It'll pretty much flatten at 65C with a little more fan rpms for really GPU heavy stuff this way. Still leaves me some headroom on the off chance that I need it, which I do occasionally need to be able to tap into it and be able to do what I need to do without hitting my cooling ceiling.

To me that's a reasonable equilibrium for a chip that's rated at 95C. Plenty of longevity headroom there without completely outpacing cooling during regular use. I'd have to say it depends on what you're trying to do though. I would shoot for a max further down from tjmax if i was planning on going heavier more often. Just because that sustained heat builds up in pcbs and could affect nearby components. Prolonged loads at 80C might just start to shave a little life off of something if given time. Tjmax is where throttling/shutdown occurs to prevent immediate damage. Doesn't mean damage can't accumulate from just below that if sustained. The occasional sustained load at 80C isn't enough to concern me. It's knowing it's going there often that would. Common sense says that temperatures where stability takes a dive are generally not good. That's your CPU/VRM trying to tell you that you're working it too hard.

I'm running what you could call a mid-range air setup. H5 sized 140mm air cooler, maybe a little larger. Midsize ATX with 120mm top/rear exhaust and two 140mm front intakes. If not for that i wouldn't let my cooler ever move 80C worth of heat energy. I'd worry too much about VRMs cooking. Its a 6 phase so it naturally runs a bit cooler and with those two fans pulling air directly off the heatsink it tends to stay quite low. Overall case air temperature is probably a little lower than my hottest components, so it all works out without anything overheating, including drives and PSU - which still run cool as can be. If I can sustain a MAX peak of 80C and still keep those conditions, I'll take the performance I get by having that as my max allowance, knowing I'll rarely ever need it to bear that.


So I guess short answer is that there's no magic number that anyone one the internet can give. Its totally situational and relative to the specced max of the chip. You start from tjmax and work your way down to what is actually stable and what your cooling manages well enough to keep case air temps under control. For most people this is going to fall significantly below the max. Takes some testing to get it worked out, but that's going to be your "safe" range. Really just gotta take the time to think not just about the CPU itself, but the build as a whole and start seeing where your weak points are. You can pick the highest temp that your weakest point allows for. Going higher is getting out of common sense territory and into "calculated risk." So long as you know, you can always monitor and switch OC profiles when you know heavy sustained loads are coming.

Rest is comfort zone imo. Past being below specced max, its a matter of how much performance you wanna compromise for peace of mind... or how much heat you can gain before performance drops and/or you hit diminishing returns. Depends on which way you swing. For me its diminishing returns. I'll take the max performance at the expense of extra heat, so long as the gains are still significant enough to justify the thermal load. Some would prefer lowest temperatures possible.


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## John Naylor (Sep 14, 2018)

Depends upon the test ... I don't really see the point of testing with synthetics ... unless you built the PC tpo get ya name on OC Leader Boards.  If you built your PC to run applications and games, then I suggest using an application based benchmark like RoG Real Bench.  I keep raising clocks till I see getting close to 80C ... bit for everything after Ivy Bridge, I always hit the voltage wall before the temperature wall.   GPUs are running at 44C and CPU gets into mid 70s on RB w/ BIOS Core voltage at 1.3875 ... it gets into  the 1.4 range when stress testing and when AVX is present will see micro bursts that will break just above 1.5   In gaming, Im usually in high 50s  / low 60s.  Fans will get up near 800 rpm in stress testing but when gaming, usually 350 - 575.

I can't speak to Ryzen from personal experience as so far no one has asked us to do a Ryzen build.  Most folks I know are targeting about 10C below how far they will go with Intel CPUs.


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## FireFox (Sep 14, 2018)

infrared said:


> As Vayra said, VRM temps are probably more important to keep an eye on.



In fact some place a fan back of the Mobo or directly on the VRM to add some extra cooling but some other people care too much about aesthetics and prefer to ignore the VRM temps and focus just on CPU temps.


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## RejZoR (Sep 14, 2018)

I've placed a 60mm fan on top of AiO pump blowing at the VRM. I also had one on the other side of motherboard, but I now replaced it by sticking two huge heatsinks on top of a metal plate covering the mosfets (or whatever it is back there) on the back of mobo. To my luck, the square shaped pump is almost the same size as the fan which kinda makes it look pretty nice. Both are black so no color clashing there. I've watched Buildzoid guy and I was a bit shocked when I learned how crappy VRM's are and how crappy cooling is on them. And it even made sense when I think of it now. So, I'm now taking greater care about it...


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## FireFox (Sep 14, 2018)

I don't know my Motherboard's VRM temps but all what i can say is that inside my Case the temp is 18c that means 9c below room temp, i guess that the lower the temps inside the Case is and the cooler the components are, or maybe am i wrong?

Max Temp while Gaming is 36c.


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## StrayKAT (Sep 14, 2018)

Knoxx29 said:


> I don't know my Motherboard's VRM temps but all what i can say is that inside my Case the temp is 18c that means 9c below room temp, i guess that the lower the temps inside the Case is and the cooler the components are, or maybe am i wrong?
> 
> Max Temp while Gaming is 36c.



Well.. I'm envious. So that's what real watercooling does.. huh.


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## hat (Sep 15, 2018)

Knoxx29 said:


> I don't know my Motherboard's VRM temps but all what i can say is that inside my Case the temp is 18c that means 9c below room temp, i guess that the lower the temps inside the Case is and the cooler the components are, or maybe am i wrong?
> 
> Max Temp while Gaming is 36c.



Incorrect sensor reading. How can the air inside the computer be cooler than room temp? Unless you are filling it with dry ice blocks every so often...


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## DRDNA (Sep 15, 2018)

Knoxx29 said:


> In fact some place a fan back of the Mobo or directly on the VRM to add some extra cooling but some other people care too much about aesthetics and prefer to ignore the VRM temps and focus just on CPU temps.


While this indeed was the tried and true of the older motherboards now it more about mobo VRM's staying cool...and as for GPU's the older stuff seemed to have a common failure and that was the VRM's but, now days the GPU's seem to come better equipped to  deal with it as do the Mobo's but its still the weakest spot for heat issues and failures. 50% Of the time a throttle is triggered by VRM's maybe even more.


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## Batou1986 (Sep 15, 2018)

hat said:


> Incorrect sensor reading. How can the air inside the computer be cooler than room temp? Unless you are filling it with dry ice blocks every so often...


Its possible his chiller is cooling the case too, or at least the board enough for it to effect that sensor.



DRDNA said:


> While this indeed was the tried and true of the older motherboards now it more about mobo VRM's staying cool...and as for GPU's the older stuff seemed to have a common failure and that was the VRM's but, now days the GPU's seem to come better equipped to  deal with it as do the Mobo's but its still the weakest spot for heat issues and failures. 50% Of the time a throttle is triggered by VRM's maybe even more.


This really baffles me too it seems that the VRM components have advanced to a point where they can survive much hotter temps so MB mfgs have just decided to skimp as much as possible  on heatsinks and phases which is the reason I got a top down cooler to blow on the VRM.


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## FireFox (Sep 15, 2018)

hat said:


> Incorrect sensor reading. How can the air inside the computer be cooler than room temp?



Easy

Put a Radiator inside the case with two fans attached to it turn on the Chiller and cool the water at 10c what do you think it's going to happen inside the case? when using Waterchiller you dont need Rads but i placed one inside the case knowing that doing so temps would drop.


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## cucker tarlson (Sep 15, 2018)

Depends what benchmark. On air, anything below 80 in those super intensive ones like p95 or FPU is great while under 90 is borderline.Gaming I prefer around 50 with max temps in high 50s, though 60s in gaming are perfectly good too.


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## Tomgang (Sep 15, 2018)

I think it depends on cpu. But the i7 980x i have has tj max at 101 degress celsius and is also there it starts to thermal throttle. For every day use i keep it below 80 degress celsius, that is 20 degress below throttle tresshold. Meaning max 80 c shut be safe.


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## infrared (Sep 15, 2018)

Knoxx29 said:


> Easy
> 
> Put a Radiator inside the case with two fans attached to it turn on the Chiller and cool the water at 10c what do you think it's going to happen inside the case? when using Waterchiller you dont need Rads but i placed one inside the case knowing that doing so temps would drop.


Clever use of a chiller, I like!  You don't have problems with condensation on the rad?


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## FireFox (Sep 15, 2018)

infrared said:


> Clever use of a chiller, I like!  You don't have problems with condensation on the rad?



Nope because i always keep the water's temp a few degree above the dew point to avoid condensation.


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