Accurate CPU Temp?

Albylion · June 22, 2016

I built my first rig a couple months ago and installed a Cooler Master Hyper 212EVO. The fan rattled a lot and made me nuts, so I've switched to a closed-loop liquid cooler: the Corsair H55. I don't do any gaming, but I do render edited video, which takes up 100% of my CPU (an eight-core AMD FX-9590 [4.7 Ghz]) for about 20 minutes. (I don't overclock at all.) With the old 212, I never saw my CPU temperature get higher than 71° C, and they cooled off very quickly. Now with the H55 loop, SpeedFan reports a CPU temperature of < 103° C.

'How has my CPU not melted?' I asked myself, so I reseated the pump with Arctic Silver 5 paste (spreading it evenly with a card) rather than the stuff that came with the H55. And still, I'm seeing SpeedFan report over 100°. This is corroborated with the ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility (I have an ASRock 990FX Extreme9 board). But Core Temp and Speccy report the individual core temperatures as much, much lower.

So my question is: what gives? Is my CPU really running at 104° C? How has it not called all the boys to the yard because it's so hot? And how on earth does a liquid cooler (albeit a 120 mm) run so much hotter than the heatsink? Is the 212EVO just that awesome (despite its fan)?

Beeeyeee · June 22, 2016

try another monitor like NZXT CAM and tell me what the results are: https://camwebapp.com/

tikker · June 22, 2016

Judging by AMD's website the max temp is 57 °C so if it still lives my guess would be that SpeedFan is giving the wrong temperature. Try another program and see what that says.

shayan_doust · June 22, 2016

I'm using Aida64 extreme. It gives me any statistics as well as raw data. A bit on the expensive side though.

burnttoastnice · June 22, 2016

I've always used Speccy and HWMonitor to measure CPU temps, as well as fan speed.

Albylion · June 23, 2016

So I've run a full load for 20 minutes and monitored with 7 different programs:

AIDA64 Extreme - 64° C

Core Temp - 65° C

Speccy - 65° C

CAM - 65° C

HWMonitor Pro 65.1° C

-------------

ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility - 102° C

SpeedFan - 103° C

Most of the monitoring software reports core temperature as fairly reasonable, but then AXTU and SpeedFan report abnormally high readings. I wonder if it anything to do with the Voltage Regulator Module readings? VRM1 is 110° C. Why so hot? (What exactly does the VRM do, and is it in the processor?) The ASRock FX990 Extreme9 has 10 + 2 CPU power phases, I think. (I don't understand much of this side of it all.) Is that part of it?