Hi all,

 

Just had a very quick question regarding temperatures for the i7 4770k CPU. I posted a thread regarding this issue almost a year ago and got some great feedback, but wanted to revisit this particular issue as I'm looking at making the jump to FSX-SE anyway.

 

Currently, I have my CPU overclocked to 4.2 GHz. When I run FSX using an ORBX scenery and a Carenado plane, my max temp (according to HWMonitor64) reaches 68C. However, I can't seem to tell if it just spikes at 68C or if that is sustained throughout my flights. Just to experiment, I loaded up my default CPU profile and brought all the OC numbers back to stock. When I recreated the flight as closely as I could, my max temps were 55C (again, not sure if this was sustained throughout the flight or just the peak temp my CPU spiked at).

 

So I was basically wondering if these temperatures were considered normal and within a safe range, based on everyone else's experience with FSX and overclocking? My next flight, I'd like to try and load some other add-ons like REX and REX Latitude to see if that adds a significant difference to the temps, but I'd really appreciate anyone's thoughts or feedback on my current results.

 

As always, I truly appreciate your thoughts and feedback. Thank you!

68 is getting  there but still safe - but you should get that cpu on water worries over - you did not mention your cooling setup - that would help

68 is getting  there but still safe - but you should get that cpu on water worries over - you did not mention your cooling setup - that would help

 

Sorry about that, I've included the full list below. My Corsair H100i is actually configured as my out-take out of the top of my case. All of the fans on my case (Azza Hurrican) are configured as intakes. 

 

 

 

Cooling - Corsair H100i

Processor - Intel Core i7-4770K

Processor Cores - 4

Processor Speed - 3.5 GHz

RAM - G.Skill Trident X Series 8GB DDR3-2400 Memory

Video Board Manufacturer - EVGA

Video Board Model - GeForce GTX 780

Video Memory - 3 GB

Mother Board - ASRock Z87 Extreme6 ATX LGA1150

Hard Drives - Samsung 840 EVO SSD(2) / Seagate Barracuda HDD(2)

Monitor - 27", 1920x1080, Asus VE278Q (x3)

Operating System - Windows 7 Ultimate

 

Sorry about that, I've included the full list below. My Corsair H100i is actually configured as my out-take out of the top of my case. All of the fans on my case (Azza Hurrican) are configured as intakes. 

 

Well I have a Corsair H100i and they are excellent for the money an ease of install - plan on water cooling a TitanX when a corsair bracket is available with an Hi80 -  nice rig you have - you should be good to go - have fun with it - oh get a Titan X with that rig

Ideally you want to be monitoring core temperatures not CPU temperature especially with something like FSX which only really stresses a single core. I would download and install RealTemp which will record peak temperatures on all your cores whilst you are in FSX. General advice would be to make sure your hottest core doesn't regularly exceed 85c under max load which you would really want to be checking using some form of stress test such as AIDA64.

Well I have a Corsair H100i and they are excellent for the money an ease of install - plan on water cooling a TitanX when a corsair bracket is available with an Hi80 -  nice rig you have - you should be good to go - have fun with it - oh get a Titan X with that rig

 

Thanks Richard! I very much appreciate it!

 

 

Ideally you want to be monitoring core temperatures not CPU temperature especially with something like FSX which only really stresses a single core. I would download and install RealTemp which will record peak temperatures on all your cores whilst you are in FSX. General advice would be to make sure your hottest core doesn't regularly exceed 85c under max load which you would really want to be checking using some form of stress test such as AIDA64.

 

Thanks PieEater, I'll try RealTemp tonight. Back when I was setting up my OC (about a year ago), I was using different stress tests, such as Prime95 and AIDA64. From what I remember, they were giving me different temperature results, which was driving me in circles; I'm not sure if they are testing differently? I went back through my notes and I believe with Prime95 I was getting a high of 74C or 75C. I can't find my notes on my tests with AIDA64, but I believe AIDA64 was a bit lower than that. I may run another AIDA64 test this weekend, but if I stay under 85C, can I put my mind at ease about the health of my CPU?

Ideally you want to be monitoring core temperatures not CPU temperature especially with something like FSX which only really stresses a single core. I would download and install RealTemp which will record peak temperatures on all your cores whilst you are in FSX. General advice would be to make sure your hottest core doesn't regularly exceed 85c under max load which you would really want to be checking using some form of stress test such as AIDA64.

 

I second this recommendation. I tuned my OC using a couple of stress tests (Prime95 being one, the other, which was brutal, I can't recall off the top of my head) so that no core would exceed 80c - just to be safe. Using those OC settings, FSX never drives any of the core temps over 65c - which i am quite comfortable with.

 

As an aside, with my FSX config settings, all cores are quite nicely stressed. Although core 0 stays pretty well pegged, cores 1 through 3 are also quite well utilized (min 70%) and are also usually pegged under more demanding situations.

Yes the different stress tests use different methods to force the CPU cores to run at 100% so the results will vary. Prime runs through a wide series of computational scenarios so you need to leave it running for a good 2-3 hours for the temps to have increased to their maximum. The more extreme stress test was probably IBT (Intel Burn Test) which gets to max temps very quickly (within minutes rather than hours) I'm not sure on it's suitability for the latest CPU's though which is why I didn't suggest it, AIDA seems to be the current favourite at the moment.

 

It's very rare for any real world software to be as aggressive as the synthetic stress tests so as long as your max temps are controlled so they don't regularly exceed 85c under stress then your CPU should achieve a long and happy life. Bare in mind that ambient temps do play a part so if you run close to 85c you may want to run through the tests if you experience increased temperatures due to warmer weather.

DO NOT RUN Intel burn test! If you are hitting nearly 70c with FSX you will be at 90c with IBT. First thing I would try is cleaning off the thermal paste, reapply and re-seat the water pump. Then run FSX again and let us know what temps your hitting. Should be closer to 50c with that setup.  

Thank you everyone for your feedback, it is appreciated.

 

So I opened my computer tonight and did the following:

 

-Added some rubber shims to between the motherboard and backplate of the h100i

-Removed and reapplied thermal paste

-Reaseated the heat sink and tightened fairly tight with a screwdriver

 

I did a very quick flight (like 2 minutes) in FSX and my max temp was 63C - I know that's not a huge drop, but as long as those kind of temps (i.e. anything under 70C?) will not shorten the life of my CPU or damage any components, I'm going to be happy with it. I'm not looking for an OC past 4.2 GHz and am happy just to fly along in my sim. I truly do appreciate the support and (hopefully) being able to get my temps down a few degrees.

Quick update - I did a second flight in FSX and the temps got up to a max of 71C. I'm wondering if this may be because the thermal paste was only put in 20 mins prior and I hadn't run any stress tests yet?

 

Either way, as long as I'm still within safe temp ranges, I'm not going to worry about it too much. I know the temps could and should be lower, but if someone could just give me an idea of what temps I should start to worry about the life of my CPU and components, I would appreciate that. I think I've spent more time worrying and tinkering with the PC than actually getting usefulness out of it. But I do sincerely appreciate everyone's help here.

Again you need to be looking at your core temperatures not your CPU temperature. I just did a very quick run in Prime and my hottest core was 20c more than my reported CPU temp. Your quick run in FSX at 63c could equate to 83c core temp which would likely be considerably more under stress testing.

 

I'm not a fan of closed loop coolers like the H100i because they have multiple points of failure, if yours is not cooling properly it would be best to pick this up now whilst it is still working at some level rather then ignoring a potential problem which could result in damage to your CPU.

 

Can I refer you to my post #5 and suggest you follow the advice.

RealTemp does not support Haswell, for its last update was Jan 2012.  To monitor Haswell individual core temps use CPUID HWMonitor.  My 4.5Ghz 4770K OC hits about the same max core temps in FSX as you observe (67c-70c) and after nearly two years it's still going strong.  See my computer profile for details of my system.

RealTemp does not support Haswell, for its last update was Jan 2012.  To monitor Haswell individual core temps use CPUID HWMonitor.  My 4.5Ghz 4770K OC hits about the same max core temps in FSX as you observe (67c-70c) and after nearly two years it's still going strong.  See my computer profile for details of my system.

 

CPUID HWMonitor - this is what I use and CPUZ

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the feedback. I think I have CPUID HWMonitor and CPUZ so I'll have those running in the background when I test more this weekend. I made one change to my OC from a suggestion I got in an older thread I started a year ago and changed my CPU vCore voltage to override mode (instead of adaptive mode) at 1.150. Now when i ran FSX my temps hit a high of 59C in a quick flight. I just want to confirm leaving my CPU in vCore override mode @ 1.150 is safe?

 

I truly appreciate you guys helping me to get a baseline of what safe temps would be for day-to-day use of the i7 4770k. As long as my temps are considered safe I'm happy where I'm at and just want to get to flying!  :p0502: