PC Temperature advice

[BootonTheMooton]

Hi all, 

Recently, I bought the parts for my new gaming pc and built my first PC from scratch! Its been running for a few days absolutely fine for long periods, which is a good sign :) 

My specs are:

Ryzen 7 3700X not overclocked yet

ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS motherboard

Noctua NH-12S for cooling

Corsair vengeance 3200mhz 2x8gb RAM not overclocked so running at 2666mhz currently

RTX 2080 Super 

Sabrent Rocker NVME m.2 1TB drive

 

However, the other day I began playing through some of the older games in my steam library e.g Dishonored / Tomb Raider. Out of interest I downloaded speed fan to have a look at the temps and after a long gaming session maxed out settings and having been on all day it reached around 54 degress C for the GPU. 

I have a Noctua NH-U12S for my CPU with one fan blowing out the back (not mounted on back of case as an exhaust) and I have the Phanteks P400A-DRGB case with three front fans currently and my pc is sat on a desk with decent airflow

I have a few questions:

1. What are normal and acceptable temperatures for an air cooled pc , I want to check so that when I get into more demanding games I wont have to worry.

2. I have 5 fan headers on my motherboard so am planning to buy some more fans to attach, one to my CPU cooler to pull air through the cooler and one on the back of the case to keep air flowing through. Should i get some more noctua fans to match my current CPU cooler or are there any other good manufacturers you can suggest.

3. Also in the long run, could I improve cooling even more with using some fans on the roof of the case pulling and pushing air out the filter at the top or is that overkill.

4. Are there any better temperature monitoring tools that are more accurate or forgiving, as speed fan gives the 'too hot' symbol when GPU is anything over 50 degrees C

 

Any help would be appreciated

[MartinKweh]

GPU temp is fine as long as it doesnt exceed 83C. but prefererably below 75. 

 

On the CPU side of things, as long as its not exceeding like 85C, its good too. heck that 54 C is really cool.

[boggy77]

you should aim to keep cpu under 80C and gpu under 75C durin load/stress testing. idle temps are not really relevant unless they make your fans spin for no reason.

[BootonTheMooton]

1 hour ago, MartinKweh said:

heck that 54 C is really cool.

Yeah I thought so but wanted to check as you can imagine with my first build  That was in a 2012 game though so will test with newer games when I have them downloaded  

 

1 hour ago, boggy77 said:

cpu under 80C and gpu under 75C durin load/stress testing.

ok thank you thats good to know, how much benefit would I get from more fans do you think?

[boggy77]

6 minutes ago, BootonTheMooton said:

ok thank you thats good to know, how much benefit would I get from more fans do you think?

if your temps are already low, not much.

[SolarNova]

6 minutes ago, BootonTheMooton said:

Yeah I thought so but wanted to check as you can imagine with my first build  That was in a 2012 game though so will test with newer games when I have them downloaded  

 

 

The age of the software is irrelevant, its the load it puts on the system that matters when testing cooling.

 

Your temps as it stands however, are fine.

[BootonTheMooton]

1 minute ago, SolarNova said:

The age of the software is irrelevant, its the load it puts on the system that matters when testing cooling.

Interesting and good to know thank you, just wanted to check as thinking of purchasing Control the game which has Ray Tracing so wanted to ensure cooling is adequate before I push it hard

2 minutes ago, boggy77 said:

if your temps are already low, not much.

Thats good to know thank you  If i were to look in the future do you have any brands you can recommend?

[SolarNova]

5 minutes ago, BootonTheMooton said:

Interesting and good to know thank you, just wanted to check as thinking of purchasing Control the game which has Ray Tracing so wanted to ensure cooling is adequate before I push it hard

 

If u really want to push the system and find its cooling limits, u can use software like Aida64, OCCT, Unigine Heaven, Unigine Valley, Unigine Superposition, and Cinebench.

These will put maximum load on the CPU and/or GPU so u can setup fan curves and test the limits. Also ofc are also used for stability testing overclocks, and performance testing,

 

But ofc, those are synthetic loads, ur not going to experience full on loads like that in games, so if it can handle those loads, u need not worry about it in games.

[BootonTheMooton]

2 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

These will put maximum load on the CPU and/or GPU so u can setup fan curves and test the limits. Also ofc are also used for stability testing overclocks, and performance testing,

Ok thank you very much, do you have any advice on how to avoid pushing it too hard, or is that pretty much impossible with one of those programmes?

[SolarNova]

1 minute ago, BootonTheMooton said:

Ok thank you very much, do you have any advice on how to avoid pushing it too hard, or is that pretty much impossible with one of those programmes?

In terms of utilization,  u cant push it to hard, Components are designed to run full pelt all the time if needed.

 

However , for cooling, u can monitor temps urself using various software. Most bench programs display the temp of the GPU and/or CPU they are designed to push anyway.

CPUs are also designed to self throttle when above a certain temp, and force shutdown if they overheat.

GPUs also self throttle.

 

You have a NH-U12S , so u have a solid cooler, it should handle it fine. and while some GPU coolers are better than others, they are all capable of cooling the GPU when its maxed out. The only thing that can stop these coolers working correctly is if u suffocate the case.

[BootonTheMooton]

47 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

In terms of utilization,  u cant push it to hard, Components are designed to run full pelt all the time if needed.

 

However , for cooling, u can monitor temps urself using various software. Most bench programs display the temp of the GPU and/or CPU they are designed to push anyway.

CPUs are also designed to self throttle when above a certain temp, and force shutdown if they overheat.

GPUs also self throttle.

 

You have a NH-U12S , so u have a solid cooler, it should handle it fine. and while some GPU coolers are better than others, they are all capable of cooling the GPU when its maxed out. The only thing that can stop these coolers working correctly is if u suffocate the case.

Thank you so much that is fantastic and exactly what I needed to hear! I was thinking of using Cinebench for CPU and UNIGINE Valley for GPU do you think this would be a good indication, I think I have used one before so will give it a go, thanks for your advice!

[SolarNova]

32 minutes ago, BootonTheMooton said:

Thank you so much that is fantastic and exactly what I needed to hear! I was thinking of using Cinebench for CPU and UNIGINE Valley for GPU do you think this would be a good indication, I think I have used one before so will give it a go, thanks for your advice!

Aye that works.

 

Personal i prefer OCCT for that as u only need use 1 program, it does it under the PSU stress test (basically loads up the CPU and GPU at the same time) and can be set to run as long as u like and u can setup auto shut off of the test when temps hit a certain point.

[BootonTheMooton]

1 hour ago, SolarNova said:

Personal i prefer OCCT for that as u only need use 1 program, it does it under the PSU stress test (basically loads up the CPU and GPU at the same time) and can be set to run as long as u like and u can setup auto shut off of the test when temps hit a certain point.

Amazing! Thats exactly what i wanted, to be able to shut things off when they reach a certain temperature. Thank you so much for your help!

[BootonTheMooton]

2 hours ago, SolarNova said:

Personal i prefer OCCT for that as u only need use 1 program, it does it under the PSU stress test (basically loads up the CPU and GPU at the same time) and can be set to run as long as u like and u can setup auto shut off of the test when temps hit a certain point.

What should I aim for on the 3D test do you think to simulate a heavy triple A title at 1440p?

[SolarNova]

1 minute ago, BootonTheMooton said:

What should I aim for on the 3D test do you think to simulate a heavy triple A title at 1440p?

what ever maxes out ur GPU utilization.