CPU tempertue question

chaosassualt

Famous
Joined
Jun 10, 2007
Messages
576
I wanted to know the normal range of CPU temperatures
My cpu fan is Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
and thermal grease is some arctic silver that my dad brought home from work
 
I would say, for any CPU, in order to prolong it's life as much as possible, you want to try to get cooling that will keep you idle temp in the 30-35 degree range (If you can get below 30 degrees that would be great). While gaming, you wanna try to keep it in the 40's low 50's MAX seeing how (if you're a gamer) you'd be gaming often. And as far as criticaly temps goes, the link KilZone provided is pretty good. You definitely don't want any CPU to be consistently running over 70 degrees. I personally don't want my CPU (i7 920) to go into the 60's. Which is why a bought a cooler to make sure that doesn't happen. (Cooler Master V8)
 
Before I got my Core 2 Quad Processor, I used to Idle at 28 degrees with an Intel Celeron DC, but that's not a very powerful processor.

Now on Stock Cooling it idles in the 40ish range average on all 4 cores, but stock cooling for Intel Processors sucks. Buying a new HSF is always a good idea, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

There's usually a lot of leeway with processor temperature depending on what hardware you have, and various other things. I have some friends who have their processor running at a constant 80 - 90 degrees, or even higher. Speedfan consistently says their CPU is on fire, but some processors are rated higher than others, and overclocking will always raise your heat quite a bit.
 
I would say, for any CPU, in order to prolong it's life as much as possible, you want to try to get cooling that will keep you idle temp in the 30-35 degree range (If you can get below 30 degrees that would be great). While gaming, you wanna try to keep it in the 40's low 50's MAX seeing how (if you're a gamer) you'd be gaming often. And as far as criticaly temps goes, the link KilZone provided is pretty good. You definitely don't want any CPU to be consistently running over 70 degrees. I personally don't want my CPU (i7 920) to go into the 60's. Which is why a bought a cooler to make sure that doesn't happen. (Cooler Master V8)
Not neccesarily true, 40-45 idle temps are perfectly fine on a quad core. In-game aslong as your not hitting above like 60-61c your good.

But your temps really depend on the proccesor/cooler your using. Stock coolers don't show that great of temps.
 
Last edited:
I got a phenom 9500 on a stock cooler and I idle at about 35-40C and gaming gets me up to around 55-65C


If you get anything higher than 65C all the time you should look into cleaning your fans out, before I cleaned my fans out I was idling at 60C and gaming would easily get me into the 70s.
 
I've got an Intel Core i7 @ 3.2GHz (Default is 2.66GHz) running at 30?c idle and 45?c load with a Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120
 
damn jv those are good temps... im running at 33? just by going on the internet, but its summer so i understand
 
I got a phenom 9500 on a stock cooler and I idle at about 35-40C and gaming gets me up to around 55-65C.

I have the phenom II 940. I get the same temps.
This is the coolest cpu i've ever used. Its overclocked and quad core and it idles 10+ degrees cooler than any of my previous cpus. I love it.
 
I'm on a Q6600 with stock heatsink + thermal compund, and a case with next to zero airflow, and I idle at 30-32 on stock clocks. There's no need for after market cooling if your not overclocking.
 
Not neccesarily true, 40-45 idle temps are perfectly fine on a quad core. In-game aslong as your not hitting above like 60-61c your good.

But your temps really depend on the proccesor/cooler your using. Stock coolers don't show that great of temps.
Word.

But I think 40-45 degree idle temp is kinda seems like mediocre cooling to me. I was trying to list 'Best Case Scenario' type temps.
 
I got the Core 2 Quad q9550s. It runs at 2.83ghz with only 65 watts of power. I also got a great copper heatsink. It runs whisper quiet and super cool.
I had a 965 Extreme edition before and the thing was a damn furnace.
 
I'm on a Q6600 with stock heatsink + thermal compund, and a case with next to zero airflow, and I idle at 30-32 on stock clocks. There's no need for after market cooling if your not overclocking.

I've got the same processor, the Q6600 G0. It's overclocked to 3.0GHz and at 25-28C idle. But for some reason, the cores run even cooler.

Before I overclocked, I was running around 20-21C idle and 15-19C per core.

Using an OCZ Vendetta II. I should've gotten some Arctic Silver thermal paste. :/
 
Regarding everyone's listed temps, are we talking ambient core temp or individual core temps? I had a hell of a time getting my 4 Ghz OC'd Q9650 to stay below 70C on a core with 100% load. Ambient was naturally much lower, 50's or so. I'm curious b/c some of these temps sound incredible and I'd like to know your secrets to achieving them :drool:
 
Regarding everyone's listed temps, are we talking ambient core temp or individual core temps? I had a hell of a time getting my 4 Ghz OC'd Q9650 to stay below 70C on a core with 100% load. Ambient was naturally much lower, 50's or so. I'm curious b/c some of these temps sound incredible and I'd like to know your secrets to achieving them :drool:

I take the average of my 4 cores.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top