Ivy Bridge i7 idle temps?

[TrueWisdom]

Hi all:

I'm putting together my first Ivy bridge rig and I'm noticing really high idle temps.

The build is an Asrock Extreme4 coupled with an i7 3770K and a CM Hyper 212+. I applied AS5 as per usual to the chip and greased the heat pipes very slightly to fill in the gaps. I'll admit it took me some time to understand how to mount the Hyper 212+, but after watching a few videos and reading feedback online I felt like I had a good understanding.

Anyhow, I mounted the HSF and in my BIOS I'm running steady at 41C idle. That seems astronomically high for one of the best aftermarket air coolers. It's the same temperature I was getting with the stock HSF, and the entire reason I bought the aftermarket cooler is because the stock HSF temps seemed way too high for comfort.

Am I doing this wrong? I will note one thing: when installing the CPU itself, I felt like I had to use an excessive amount of force to get the retention bracket secured. I've never installed an LGA1155 CPU before (I've only build AMD rigs for the past ten years) but I was really uncomfortable with how much pressure I needed to apply in order to get the retention lever underneath the hex screw that locks it into place. (The CPU itself slid right in without any problems.) Is it possible that I'm getting imperfect contact with the HSF, hence the temps?

 

[aarontpx]

I felt like I had to use an excessive amount of force to get the retention bracket secured.

This is common.

 

[TrueWisdom]

This is common.

Thank goodness. It made me quite nervous.

Any thoughts on my idle temps? I've read that idle temps can be very inaccurate.

 

[MrTransistorm]

Anyhow, I mounted the HSF and in my BIOS I'm running steady at 41C idle.

Are you only looking at the temps in BIOS? The CPU is not idle at that point. Boot into Windows and check your temps there.

Also, idle temps don't really mean much. You're right about them being inaccurate; I've seen mine drop below ambient before. What's important is load temps. Load up Priem95, Intel Burn Test, LinX, or something similar.

You should only be concerned about idle temps in Windows if they are much, much higher than ambient. That would indicate poor heat sink contact. Of course this would lead to very high load temps as well.

 

[TrueWisdom]

Are you only looking at the temps in BIOS? The CPU is not idle at that point. Boot into Windows and check your temps there.

Also, idle temps don't really mean much. You're right about them being inaccurate; I've seen mine drop below ambient before. What's important is load temps. Load up Priem95, Intel Burn Test, LinX, or something similar.

You should only be concerned about idle temps in Windows if they are much, much higher than ambient. That would indicate poor heat sink contact. Of course this would lead to very high load temps as well.

Thanks for your response. I will get a fresh install of Windows on the machine and check idle and load temps. I know that my room temp was no more than 75 F, and likely less. Hopefully idle isn't too far above that when I'm in Windows.

 

[ShintaiDK]

40C idle, 80-85C under linpack is very normal for stock cooler. The Tjmax is 105C.

 

[TrueWisdom]

Wanted to post an update--I installed Windows 7 and took some temps with CoreTemp and they were dramatically different. Core 1 was 35-37C (, while the others ranged between 25 and 32, at idle. I ran Prime95 for about three minutes just to see the CPU under load and the max I hit was 66C on Core 3.

I'm still a little unnerved by just how hot Ivy Bridge seems to run, but I'm no longer extremely concerned about my CPU. 66C under a torture test seems very reasonable to me. I'm going to install all of my RAM and run an honest-to-goodness torture test for the next 24 hours, and I'll report back then to see if things change. I may consider removing the heatspreader to use better thermal grease, but honestly I'm not sure how much I care, given that I want to do modest overclocking at best.

UPDATE: Small FFTs got me to 70C on Core 3. Never went past that. Going to set the machine up for a 24-hour stress test with Prime95. I'll do a blend to hit everything, as I'm not terribly concerned about CPU temps any longer.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Dont use "human scale" in terms of worry about your CPU. Its a classic mistake.

 

[alcoholbob]

Ivy Bridge has high idle temps, but under load it very cool. On stock I idle high 40s but on load I only usually hit around 65-66.

Not like my i7 920 Nehalem, that idled at like 28C (big aftermarket cooler, the V10) but on load easily hit 80s-90s.

 

[Xtrem]

It's different for everyone. i5-3570K's are cooler I would think, mines idling at 26-16-23-27 in Realtemp.

 

[Ed1]

Wanted to post an update--I installed Windows 7 and took some temps with CoreTemp and they were dramatically different. Core 1 was 35-37C (, while the others ranged between 25 and 32, at idle. I ran Prime95 for about three minutes just to see the CPU under load and the max I hit was 66C on Core 3.

I'm still a little unnerved by just how hot Ivy Bridge seems to run, but I'm no longer extremely concerned about my CPU. 66C under a torture test seems very reasonable to me. I'm going to install all of my RAM and run an honest-to-goodness torture test for the next 24 hours, and I'll report back then to see if things change. I may consider removing the heatspreader to use better thermal grease, but honestly I'm not sure how much I care, given that I want to do modest overclocking at best.

UPDATE: Small FFTs got me to 70C on Core 3. Never went past that. Going to set the machine up for a 24-hour stress test with Prime95. I'll do a blend to hit everything, as I'm not terribly concerned about CPU temps any longer.

I have 3570k with hyper212 evo and I get same idle temps as you and under prime95 about same as you (blend I do about 60c max ,about same if I use small FFT slightly higher and temps get there faster 62-63c) .

Note I am slightly OC (1/2 cores= 40x , 3 cores 39x, 4 cores =38x ) , this OC maybe temp went up 1c over stock speeds .

So your temps look fine .

 

[TrueWisdom]

Thanks for your input, everyone. As another update, I just finished a 15-hour Blend torture test in an enclosed, poorly ventilated room. Ambient is probably 90F at the moment. The hottest any core got was 75C; most were around 70C. No errors at all. I suspect breaking 70C was because of the recycling of very warm air.

I'm still a little uncomfortable at the temps, given how very large my HSF is, but given that my temps are stable and within common ranges, I have every reason to believe that it's being properly cooled. Like I said, at some point I may yank the heatspreader off and apply some decent thermal paste to get the chip cooler, but for now my fears have been largely addressed.

Thanks again all! Hopefully any other newcomers to Ivy Bridge will see this thread and not freak out at their idle temps.

 

[Xtrem]

The Hyper 212+ isn't the best, but is has the highest performance/dollar. So you should be fine. What case are you using and how many fans?

 

[Ed1]

There no app that will come anywhere close to temps by prime95 so don't worry .

Run the app you normally do I bet it will be 10 less than prime ones .


FWIW my comment above is with room temps around 72-74F .