RealTemp General Discussion

[akesavar]

Hey unclewebb/other very knowledgeable people,

Just got a new core i7-920 rig setup w/ 6GB DDR3, EVGA GTX280, and Asetek LCLC, and I'm using Realtemp + Prime95 to keep an eye on things.

My question is regarding the Sensor Movement Test feature - my Base Clock is set at 172, with everything else at Auto in the BIOS, so I have a 3.6 OC. Now, the sensor movement values seem very high = 25 25 24 24

With no OC, they drop, but still are around the 18 - 20 range.

I've manually inspected the heatsink/water cooling system, and everything seems quite sturdy and well seated. Temps are a bit high, but usually around 50 - 55 C, which seems standard for the i7 OC'd.

What's going on with the sensor movement?!

 

[unclewebb]

The Core i7 is a heat producing monster, especially when overclocking or using additional core voltage. It will increase in temperature much more than a similar Core 2 Quad during this test.

Run CPU-Z and see what it reports for your core voltage. Use as little core voltage as necessary while still maintaining Prime stability. Your results seem normal for Core i7.

 

[akesavar]

With cpu-z - running Prime95 small FFT's with no OC: Temps are from 67 - 73 C. Core voltage is about 1.176 V - 1.192 V. It's 0.944 V with no load. Movement values are still 18 17 17 18

I used CoreTemp as well, and it's reporting the same temps (little lower (40 - 44 under no load)). The temps seem okay. it's more the Movement values that I'm worried about. Should they be that high?

 

[akesavar]

Okay, new values - I set my BCLK at 175 (to get 3.5 at 20x and 3.67 at 21x).
With realtemp - sensor movements 25 26 24 25
Temps: 56 - 60 C.
Core Voltage: 1.296

When I run the Prime95 tests, my temps skyrocket to 84-88 C. For some reason, I get the feeling that my Asetek LCLC system isn't doing too much...

 

[unclewebb]

It's hard finding reviews for the Asetek LCLC but there seem to be a few people running them on their Core i7 CPUs.

Here's a comment from Xtremesystems:

"I only used the system for a few days and I was not impressed with the performance."

That comment is two years old. It wasn't really designed for the heat output of a Core i7 let alone an overclocked Core i7. It doesn't seem to be in the same league as a modern top notch air cooler like a Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme.

Make sure it is mounted snugly to the CPU. Try installing it again and if you can't get better temps than that, you might have to look at another solution if you're planning to overclock.

 

[d1289]

Hi!
Sorry about the delay, got buried with work.
So I installed the new CPU cooler, and reran the cooldown test and got the attached results.
Is it normal to have about 5 C difference between cores?
Do you think I should change the TJMax(if yes, then which cores and to what value)?
Why does Asus PcProbe detect significantly lower CPU temp?
By the way do you know how much the q8200 can be overclocked (within safety limits) and how?
Thanks in advance!

 

[unclewebb]

The CPU reading from Asus Probe may or may not be accurate. That reading is typically an approximation of what the TCase reading is but I don't have enough experience with your board to know how accurate that is. On my older Asus P5B board, this reading seems to be close at idle but it reports at least 25C too high at full load so I don't trust it too much.

Your results are hard to interpret. Usually when you switch coolers, the temperatures decrease but they decrease similar amounts on each core. Your first screen shot looks a lot different from the one above for core to core consistency. Maybe you're getting better at installing a heatsink.

How much heat paste do you use and what method do you use to apply it?

At the moment, TJMax looks 5C higher on core 2 but the other 3 look like they are all the same. I've seen CPUs where two cores have one TJMax and the other two cores have a different TJMax but never 3 with one TJMax and 1 with another.

If you set TJMax to 100, 100, 105, 100, you should have consistent temperatures across all 4 cores from idle to full load. Intel doesn't provide enough documentation about these sensors so that is just my best guess.

Your core temps do seem higher than normal. Some of these sensors read higher than normal by 5C or 10C at idle so that's not unusual. The test I use to try to figure this out is I open my case, turn the CPU fan to high if it's adjustable and then I go into the bios and boot up at 333 x 6.0 and manually set the core voltage as low as it can go. My board will boot up at 1.08 volts. This creates a minimum amount of heat. After that I let my computer sit there after booting up at idle and see how low the temps go.

If you don't want to change those bios settings then just enable EIST / SpeedStep and C1E. When you get to Windows, run CPU-Z and see how low your core voltage goes and if your multiplier goes down to 6.0 like it should.

With 45nm Quads, this test might not give us any new information because of the problem with sensors getting stuck at lower temperatures. If you're curious, try that and post your results and we can go from there.

You might be better off using TJMax = 95, 95, 100, 95
It might not be accurate at full load but might be more accurate at the temperatures you typically operate at.

As for overclocking, the 7.0 maximum multiplier is going to limit you. I would try to run it at 7 x 500 MHz but very few motherboards can run a Quad stable with a FSB of 500 MHz. Start by trying 400 MHz first and go from there. You have enough core voltage that you can probably get up to 450 MHz without having to adjust that. You might have to adjust northbridge voltage and a few other voltages as well. It would be best to find a forum with users that specialize in overclocking 45nm Quads on your motherboard for some pointers.

With your new cooler and a 7.0 multiplier, temperatures will be fine so worry less about how accurate they are, because they're not, and concentrate on doing some overclocking.

 

[d1289]

I think I will try to OC then.
Thanks for the help!

 

[mudy]

I have TJMax set 100, 100, 105 and 100. is that accurate for core i7 920 D0 @ stock speed. also there's something called "idle calibration" if you go to settings, just above "Set TJMax". all the values in this field are '0.0'. I have attached few screen shots after performing the Sensor Test. are my values correct. also in speedfan i see blazing flame in these categories: Remote Temp, Temp 1, Temp 2 and then again Temp 2. what are these values as well....? sorry for being noob. I read this thread twice and also other forums. maybe am missing something to understand the concept....and also sorry for opening a separately new thread i hope someone deletes that thread.
My config is
Core i7 920 D0 @ stock with Thor's Hammer attached with Antec 120mm tricool
MSI Eclipse (with IOH Volt 0.94 @ 55C temp)
640GB x2 WD Caviar Black
CM Haf 922
Antec SG850 PSU
1 DVD RW
1 x antec spot cool for IOH
Running with windows vista x64 SP2

 

[unclewebb]

Welcome to TechPowerUp mudy.

The Core i7 sensors are generally very good and very consistent. For your i7 I'd leave TJMax at its default setting. Just click on the Defaults button. Most i7 CPUs are 100C but some are slightly less. The Default button will read this info from the CPU.

Same with the idle calibration factors. Leave them all at zero. These hacks were designed more for the 45nm Core 2 Duo and Quad sensors which were horrible.

Your core 2 readings look a little odd. How much thermal paste did you apply and how did you apply it? If you ever get bored, pull your heatsink and your CPU and put a straight edge on top of the heat spreader on the CPU and have a look at how flat it is. There might be an issue there. Try reapplying the thermal paste and see if there is any difference in temperatures between cores at idle and at full load.

These CPUs run reliably at full load up to 90C and a little beyond so there's no need to be concerned about your exact core temperature until then. As long as RealTemp continues to report OK in the Thermal Status area and your computer is stable then your temps are OK.

SpeedFan converts anything it sees into a temperature or into a voltage. A lot of the reported data is meaningless. A new version of SpeedFan was recently released but I haven't had a chance to test it. Previous versions weren't that great with the Core i7 CPUs. If you want a second opinion about your core temperatures I'd recommend Core Temp.

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

 

[mudy]

hi uncle thanks for the reply and some insight. so i have left everything to default in real temp downloaded the coretemp as well. also i did notice that core 2 temp was slightly higher than other cores and especially made me feel weird as the temps were higher than the core 0!!! so i removed the heat sink and found that i had actually over applied the thermal paste. I use Arctic Silver thermal paste http://www.arcticsilver.com/ceramique.htm. not too much but a little bit were extra. so i cleaned using ArctiClean by Arctic Silver http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm and reapplied the TIM and thinned the layer using ATM Card plastic. now i am back online doing Sensor Test from real temp and attached the screenshots. I still notice core 2 temp tends to go bit higher at times. also you'll notice that i have slightly overclocked the MHz to 166 MHz from motherboards switch.

 

[unclewebb]

The Cool Down Test was originally designed when I was using XP. I find that Vista has a lot more baggage at idle and all those nice gadgets on the right of your screen are also constantly accessing the CPU and increasing your core temperatures. At idle, core i7 CPUs are designed to run more load on a single core so the other cores can go into C3/C6 mode and go to sleep to save power. A couple of degrees difference at idle is nothing to be concerned about.

At full load, I like letting Prime 95 Small FFTs run for about 10 or 15 minutes. When a Core i7 CPU is installed correctly, I frequently see core 0 reporting the hottest temperature, core 3 is usually 5C less and the two center cores are somewhere in the middle. I think that's exactly what you'll see if you do this.

If you notice RealTemp reporting your CPU multiplier floating around at idle then go into your Control Panel -> Power Options and if there is a Minimum processor state setting play around with that. Set it to 100% if you don't like your multi dropping at idle and set it to 5% and enable EIST / C1E and your multi should drop down closer to 12 which is the minimum for these CPUs.

You can download the latest version of RealTemp I've been working on here:

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/RealTempBeta.zip

It includes a separate program called i7 Turbo which is the most accurate way to monitor your multiplier.

 

[mudy]

hey uncle! thanks for the tips. made changes in power option now it's set to 5%. I have enabled EIST and C1E by default. But still the core 2 temp is hovering 2-3 C higher than core 0...!! screenshots attached using the new realtemp beta!

P.S.: also; is this something really serious...i mean i have no stability issues so far...despite being a new system (built around 2 weeks ago) i switch on almost everyday for 3-4 hours and during those time i do stress test almost 2 hours everyday and during weekends i do it like half of the day....small ffts test!!!! thx again...you the LEGEND!!

 

[unclewebb]

P.S.: also; is this something really serious...

Actually, this is something completely normal. Micro electronic temperature sensors are far from 100% accurate. The Core i7 sensors are worlds better than the sensors Intel used on the 45 nm Core 2 CPUs but they're not perfect. Intel calibrates these sensors so they can trigger thermal throttling at 100C and thermal shut down at about 125C. That's all these sensors are designed to do and all of the sensors Intel has used are more than capable of this.

Intel has not documented these sensors or designed them for accurate core temperatures, especially at idle. For Core i7, my best guess is that at idle most of them are accurate to +/- 3C. Your sensors fall into that category. Maybe your neighbor got lucky and his sensors are a little better than that but there is nothing too unusual about your sensors. Core 0 tends to be the most accurate. It shows 29C so 29C +/- 3C is 26C to 32C. All your sensors are reporting that.

Your computer has a lot going on at idle. I can get down to under 1% Load as reported by RealTemp 3.30 while using Vista because I turn off a lot of background junk and Vista's excessive caching of files and I don't use Norton or CPU-Z when temperature testing.

Try my Prime95 Small FFT test. Run it for 10 or 15 minutes and lets see if your reported temps look like 99% of the Core i7 CPUs I've seen.

 

[Super Sarge]

My temps run from high forties and low fifties under normal use, I have run Intel Burn version 2 for 20 passes at and my temps reached high 80 low nineties at 100 percent load I am running a 3.8 20*18 turn of HT it will lower your temps it does not effect games and most programs, If you do video editing or cad leave it enabled. I also have turbo off this locks in my 3.8 ASUS P6Tdeluxe V2 CPU I7 920 6 gigs of 12800 memory

 

[mudy]

I have run prime95 for whole day like from 6:30 am to 7:30 pm but the temps have never gone more than 69 C. I haven't tested after I reseated the hsf. Will do tonight and let u know!!! Thanks

p.s. And btw, I 'had' EIST and C1E enabled and I got this better temps on core 2 after I enabled C-State from Bios!!! I have turbo and ht enabled as well and right now runnin at stock speed!!!

 

[unclewebb]

At idle, Core i7 is designed to that it tries to put more load on one core so the other ones can go into sleep mode. How this works depends on how your motherboard is set up and what C-States you have enabled. I'm not sure if the core that gets to do the work changes every time you boot up or changes as your computer is running. Check out that i7 Turbo program that I was talking about. It shows the load for each thread so you can compare that to the individual core temperatures.

If RealTemp reports APIC ID as 01234567 then the threads are lined up like this in i7 Turbo.

core 0 | core 0 | core 1 | core 1
core 2 | core 2 | core 3 | core 3

 

[mudy]

i have enable C-State to auto. it was disabled by default but looking at the description i thought to enable and see how each core works against load and idle. also as per your suggestion, i see through i7 Turbo Program that most of the load is taken by Core 2 | Core 2 and then the load remains at Core 3 | Core 3, well most of the times. is that normal?? well i will see when i disable C-State and will post both the screen shot!!

 

[unclewebb]

...well most of the times. is that normal??

I don't know. When you have a CPU load of over 7% at idle, that's not normal.

As for your CPU, it seems just like every other Core i7 CPU so I guess it's normal.

Here's how my E8400 looks in Vista when running RealTemp, RivaTuner Avast antivirus, Office 2003 and some other junk.
1% at idle is OK. 7% is software bloat.

 

[mudy]

hey uncle, sorry for the delay. was busy with work and stuffs. i think the cores getting used up once in a while in my system is due to lotza background activities!! i am thinking of referring to tweakguides.com for enabling disabling and fine tuning my vista. i will uninstall the whole operating system and reinstall it during this weekend and then fine tune it and see how it goes...i will keep you posted. as per my whole system running...everything seems to be normal. i am playing games like far cry 2, gta iv, nfs undercover, with everything set to ultra high and 8xaa and 8xq af!!! so i don't i should worry much about...huh?? thanks for your immense help ''....!!!

 

[unclewebb]

If your system is working great for you then there's no need to re-install your operating system. It's not critical to have a lean and mean system when you have an overclocked Core i7 with 8 threads of processing power available.

I'm old school and running on a Dual Core at the moment so the less background junk on my computer, the happier I am. Too many programmers don't give a crap about how bloated and inefficient their software is. Get it out the door is the only goal.

I'm very careful with every feature that gets added to RealTemp and even on a slow system, it shouldn't create any significant CPU load.

If you're gaming smoothly at 8x AA / 8x Q AF then enjoy your computer. Windows 7 is almost here. The programmers were given more time to get it right and it shows. It's going to be a lot smoother launch this fall compared to the launch of Vista.

 

[mudy]

Hi uncle,

Sorry for the late reply....as i just finished installing a fresh new Original Copy of Windows Vista 64 Bit (OEM). I have recorded the real temp data at full load (P95 Small FFT for 15 minutes) and at idle load. this time i disabled the sidebars (that thing really keeps the CPU busy, eh?? But I like it, else whats the use of all these glossy vista and core i7 and 6GB ram....). here are the screen-shots!! the min at idle is 29C and load for 15 min with P95 the temp is not going beyond 60C....i am liking the temps now...i have seen other sites as well and seems pretty normal...or can i say that i am lucky to have these temps coz there are many people who seems to have preeetty high temps even with after market cooler...!! also this is the first time i have installed a after market cooler!!

 

[unclewebb]

Sorry for the even later reply.

Your temps look good. No problems. The Core i7 isn't too bad until users start overclocking them by 50% and cranking up the core voltage. Then they get kind of hot. Looks like your cooler is working well too.

 

[Krout]

Want to understand Real Temp

I hope I'm posting in the right forum.
I need to understand Real temp. I am running Win 7 RC 64 on Q6600 OC 10% (to 2.63 - not a big deal)
The thing I cannot understand, and I am probably doing something wrong here, is that where the core temperature is shown? On my screen shot (just for experiment) I set TJ Max to 70 degrees on cores 1 and 3 and set it to 120 on cores 0 and 2. Now according to the screen my temps are core 0 - 62, core1 - 12, core2 - 63 and core3 14 deg. C. How can that be? I mean - what am doing wrong? It is very cool program and I'd like to understand how to use it.

 

[Mussels]

I hope I'm posting in the right forum.
I need to understand Real temp. I am running Win 7 RC 64 on Q6600 OC 10% (to 2.63 - not a big deal)
The thing I cannot understand, and I am probably doing something wrong here, is that where the core temperature is shown? On my screen shot (just for experiment) I set TJ Max to 70 degrees on cores 1 and 3 and set it to 120 on cores 0 and 2. Now according to the screen my temps are core 0 - 62, core1 - 12, core2 - 63 and core3 14 deg. C. How can that be? I mean - what am doing wrong? It is very cool program and I'd like to understand how to use it.

set the TJmax values back to 95C, and you'll get your real values - why did you set them to 70C in the first place?