Is your CPU cooler hot ?

biuro74 · 28 Jun 2011 at 17:24

What are temps of your CPU cooler ?

My Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme (lapped a bit) is cold in idle, and a very little bit warm under full load - when touching by hand.
I feel some warm air flow between cooler and pulling 120mm rear fan, but radiator is a bit cooler as I think.

Front part of radiator is cooler, than rear one.

Heatpipes are a very little warm.

All heat is about 35-40 deg.. as my hand can estimate, of course.

(this is part of a bigger story, rest is in another thread).. so I'd like to know what are your coolers only - rather cold, rather warm, or hard to say (36-40 deg) ?

My CPU: Q9550 (@ stock)
Ambient temp - about 28 deg today.

Phenomenologica · 28 Jun 2011 at 18:13

Why not just use the temperature sensors on the CPU rather than guessing the temperature of the cooler with your hand? The human body is an awful measuring device. If you're interested in the temperatures of the actual cooler for some reason, the fins shouldn't be too far off ambient temperature ideally, the heatpipes will obviously be hotter.

biuro74 · 28 Jun 2011 at 18:24

As I wrote, it's a part of bigger story. Main thread is here:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18290515
and I'm not interested in temperature sensors here, but guessing the temperature with your hand

BTW, radiators might be too far off ambient temperature. What about stock coolers that can even burn fingers ?

Reaper 392 · 28 Jun 2011 at 18:29

after a very long gaming session, then priming for a bit my cooler (in sig) was pleasantly warm on the fins at the top

andy_mk3 · 28 Jun 2011 at 18:37

I have a Q6600 @ 3.2GHz (1.25v) and an Arctic Freezer 7 Rev.2 cooler.

Idle
Average core temp: 44c
Room temp: 24.4c
Max temp of heatsink:

Load
Average core temp: 72c
Room temp: 24.6c
Max temp of heatsink:

I hope that might be of some help to you!

joxang · 28 Jun 2011 at 18:42

Big coolers generally don't get that hot, especially near the top. Conduction from the cpu isn't completely efficient, and a lot of heat is lost to air on the way (which is the purpose of having all those fins). The cooler baseplate is often a good deal warmer, if you can get a finger down there to feel it

.

Reaper 392 · 28 Jun 2011 at 22:36

joxang said:
The cooler baseplate is often a good deal warmer, if you can get a finger down there to feel it .

fat chance. theres no access to my cooler from the front or back because of the massive great doughnut shaped fins, the PSU is about 3mm away from one side and the GPU is very close to the other side

mraerosmith1981 · 28 Jun 2011 at 22:40

I have a thermaltake frio and the base gets very hot, and the rest gets a little warm

Phenomenologica · 28 Jun 2011 at 23:13

biuro74 said:
BTW, radiators might [not] be too far off ambient temperature. What about stock coolers that can even burn fingers ?

I said ideally. I'd hardly describe the stock cooler as ideal.

The point of the coolers is that enough air should be pumped over them to keep the fins at as close to room temperature as possible, to keep the net heat transfer away from the CPU going. The better the cooler, the closer to ambient temperature the fins should be.

Hagar · 29 Jun 2011 at 08:40

After testing with a temperature probe, at idle the base of the heatsink was read at 34C which was roughly the same as the cpu temperature.

Running prime, the cpu temp was at 50C and the heatsink was at 39C. Obviously the fan had kicked in and was running at 1000rpm instead of 2-300rpm max at idle.

The heatsink is a Thermalright ultra extreme with a single 120mm apache PWM fan. Temperatures were measured at the central heatpipe just above the base of the heatsink.

Conclusion the heatsink is not a guide to cpu temperatures and cannot be measured by the surface of your skin.

Confused Stu · 30 Jun 2011 at 00:13

Sorry, not putting my hand near my Zalman CNPS 9900 MAX. Damn thing is like a hedgehog made of razor blades! We've come to an agreement - it doesn't get touched, I don't bleed!