What to aim for temps wise?

DampDog

DampDog

DampDog

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Not built a system in an age so things have moved on. My trusty old system is only an i5 760, ancient really but it's never missed a beat. I attribute that to a little bit of luck and it running pretty cool. This time of year it sits at 29 idle and even in the height of summer working hard it's only ever hovers around the mid 50s.

I'm thinking about a new build based around a 7600X. What are the sort of "typical" temps folks are seeing on the latest power hungry CPUs? And how high is too high? I was thinking of either sticking with air and going for a Noctura D-15 or a 280 AI0 (not decided on which rad.)

I'm guessing case choice with have a big impact? Again I'm undecided as yet but was thinking Lian Li Lancool II, Meshify 2 Compact. If I can find a tiny bit of space Lian Li 011 Air Mini.
 
If you're going for AM5 then the biggest change is that the cpu will aim for a temp, not a max boost. The chip will keep pumping juice in until it hits 95 so that's what you'll see... the question is how much cooling you can feed it (unless you undervolt/use eco mode etc) to squeeze out as much performance as possible.

If that's the behaviour AMD firmware tells the chip to run at then I'd say you're fine seeing that for the lifetime of the chip, but it isn't old enough yet to know if that means that it has a shorter lifetime than previous generations that would never have seen temps that high.
 
SirConfused said:
If you're going for AM5 then the biggest change is that the cpu will aim for a temp, not a max boost. The chip will keep pumping juice in until it hits 95 so that's what you'll see... the question is how much cooling you can feed it (unless you undervolt/use eco mode etc) to squeeze out as much performance as possible.
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I'll be honest I'd read a little about power/heat management for the AM5, but the penny didn't drop that the way it works is that it's aiming for a temp. Does that not make things more difficult to reign-in temps wise. If you add in addition/better to cooling to lower the temps it just turns the wick up and you're back to where you were? Or can you set a temp limit of say 80 in bios and limit boosting?

I'm not hard set on AM5. This going to be my first new build in years and my main aim is to have something reliable (I don't overclock) and hopefully have good longevity. My thinking right or wrong, was that AM5 is the newest platform so may make it easier to upgrade or breathe a little life back into things at some point in the future. That may well be the wrong choice as it's a new platform so niggles with BIOS updates and DDR5 compatibility may just make life more difficult than it needs to be. I have no allegiance to either AMD or Intel, what little I've read had Intel down as more tending to run hotter so I leaned towards AMD. 13th gen intel may be better??
 
Longevity and power usage the AM5 is the way to go imo, AMD are known to extend the life of a platform.

You can't deny intel 13th gen pure performance and platform cost but no upgrade path after 13th gen and used more power.
 
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DampDog said:
I'll be honest I'd read a little about power/heat management for the AM5, but the penny didn't drop that the way it works is that it's aiming for a temp. Does that not make things more difficult to reign-in temps wise. If you add in addition/better to cooling to lower the temps it just turns the wick up and you're back to where you were? Or can you set a temp limit of say 80 in bios and limit boosting?

I'm not hard set on AM5. This going to be my first new build in years and my main aim is to have something reliable (I don't overclock) and hopefully have good longevity. My thinking right or wrong, was that AM5 is the newest platform so may make it easier to upgrade or breathe a little life back into things at some point in the future. That may well be the wrong choice as it's a new platform so niggles with BIOS updates and DDR5 compatibility may just make life more difficult than it needs to be. I have no allegiance to either AMD or Intel, what little I've read had Intel down as more tending to run hotter so I leaned towards AMD. 13th gen intel may be better??
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I went from a 9900k to a 13700k recently. I did look at AM5 but ultimately went the other way. I tend to upgrade every 4-5 years, by which point sticking on a platform from 3-4 years ago isn't something I do. Are you likely to want to upgrade a few bits in a couple of years? Consider AM5. It is more expensive to get into upfront at the moment, due to motherboard costs. If you're more like myself and by the time you look to upgrade, you'd be changing platform anyway and doing a core component upgrade, I'd give Intel more of a look.

You can't really go that wrong at the moment anyway. Processors are making considerable leaps compared to what they were doing generationally between the intel 2xxx to 9xxx era and their silly little jumps.

Just a shame it is getting more expensive! At least ram isn't insanely pricey right now.
 
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mickyflinn said:
Longevity and power usage the AM5 is the way to go imo, AMD are known to extend the life of a platform.

You can't deny intel 13th gen pure performance and platform cost but no upgrade path after 13th gen and used more power.
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The slightly lower power draw and the fact that it is the latest platform, so should be "current" slightly long is mainly why I'm thinking AM5. To be honest AM4 would do the job for me but if I'm going to rob the piggy-bank I may as well go AM5
Parsley said:
I went from a 9900k to a 13700k recently. I did look at AM5 but ultimately went the other way. I tend to upgrade every 4-5 years, by which point sticking on a platform from 3-4 years ago isn't something I do. Are you likely to want to upgrade a few bits in a couple of years? Consider AM5. It is more expensive to get into upfront at the moment, due to motherboard costs. If you're more like myself and by the time you look to upgrade, you'd be changing platform anyway and doing a core component upgrade, I'd give Intel more of a look.

You can't really go that wrong at the moment anyway. Processors are making considerable leaps compared to what they were doing generationally between the intel 2xxx to 9xxx era and their silly little jumps.

Just a shame it is getting more expensive! At least ram isn't insanely pricey right now.
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All my previous builds have been intel based but for this week at least AMD/AM5 feels like its a better package. I'm sure that will change again within a few months. My current build is almost 12!! It's stood the test of time very well, with some very minor upgrades along the way. Switched to SSD and more memory. PC is a workhorse and I game a little so looking forwards I guess I'd probably look at more memory and a better GPU.
 
DampDog said:
The slightly lower power draw and the fact that it is the latest platform, so should be "current" slightly long is mainly why I'm thinking AM5. To be honest AM4 would do the job for me but if I'm going to rob the piggy-bank I may as well go AM5

All my previous builds have been intel based but for this week at least AMD/AM5 feels like its a better package. I'm sure that will change again within a few months. My current build is almost 12!! It's stood the test of time very well, with some very minor upgrades along the way. Switched to SSD and more memory. PC is a workhorse and I game a little so looking forwards I guess I'd probably look at more memory and a better GPU.
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The 13600k is a performance king for the money and I'm sure will be fine for another 12 years :D.

8 e cores has really helped its performance in multi threaded apps.


Good luck whichever you decide.
 
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Just with regards to power draw, if you're not looking to overclock you can drop intel down significantly. YMMV of course, but my 13700k uses about 60-70 less watts than at stock when put under an artificial load (and I even bumped the e-cores up 100mhz as a tiny bonus). It behaves normally with that drop as well.

That drop really shows how much they're pumping into them to make sure they all run as they do. I think they also use less power under idle than Zen 3 or 4. Likely not that important.

Not saying you're making a wrong decision, just giving you some more info!
 
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Parsley said:
Just with regards to power draw, if you're not looking to overclock you can drop intel down significantly. YMMV of course, but my 13700k uses about 60-70 less watts than at stock when put under an artificial load (and I even bumped the e-cores up 100mhz as a tiny bonus). It behaves normally with that drop as well.

That drop really shows how much they're pumping into them to make sure they all run as they do. I think they also use less power under idle than Zen 3 or 4. Likely not that important.

Not saying you're making a wrong decision, just giving you some more info!
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As far as I'm concerned it's all good information. I like to build my own but it's normally years apart so things move on. You don't realise just how little you know until you start researching the next build. As far as I'm concerned nothing is set in concrete as yet. I am dawdling a bit in the hope that prices on kit may shift a little as the latest generation of stuff becomes more established. Lots of helpful peeps on here who are very knowledgeable and have experience of most builds so it's nice to be able to rock-up and start with a list of questions.

Sort of back to my original question is a decent Air cooler going to be up to the job on latest gen CPU's or should I really be thinking about a 280-360 AIO?
 
If you undervolt a 13700k or 13600k I think you'll be absolutely fine aircooling. A 13900k.... That's stretching it and you're wasting some of what you're paying for, I feel you really need at least a decent AIO to get the most out of it.

As said above, AMD is aiming for a certain temperature so the better the cooling you give the newer chips, the faster they'll run. The hotter chips, like a 7950 will really need an AIO to hit their potential.

A couple of articles just to give you some info. It's for the hotter chips mind.

www.tomshardware.com

Core i9-13900K Cooling Guide: Testing Intel's Flagship With Budget Air and Big AIOs

The Core i9-13900K can push even the most capable liquid coolers to their limits, but you don’t lose that much performance if you go with budget-priced air cooling.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
www.techpowerup.com

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Cooling Requirements & Thermal Throttling

High temperature seem to be an issue on the new Ryzen 7000 processors. We're pairing a Ryzen 9 7950X with a $10 stock cooler, a Noctua air-cooler and a 420 mm AIO to get a feel for what the differences are like in terms of °C, MHz and performance in both applications and games.
www.techpowerup.com www.techpowerup.com


The answer to your question is... It depends. I think if you're sensible, pick a chip with less cores that wants less power, you'll be fine on air. If you want a higher core count power guzzler, you'll either need to undervolt to drop temps and potentially lose performance that way (You may be lucky and get a good undervolter, or unlucky and get a bad one), or, lose some performance on an air cooler because it simply gets too hot.
 
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Parsley said:
If you undervolt a 13700k or 13600k I think you'll be absolutely fine aircooling. A 13900k.... That's stretching it and you're wasting some of what you're paying for, I feel you really need at least a decent AIO to get the most out of it.

The answer to your question is... It depends. I think if you're sensible, pick a chip with less cores that wants less power, you'll be fine on air. If you want a higher core count power guzzler, you'll either need to undervolt to drop temps and potentially lose performance that way (You may be lucky and get a good undervolter, or unlucky and get a bad one), or, lose some performance on an air cooler because it simply gets too hot.
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Thanks for the links I'll have a read through later this evening.

13900K is beyond my budget and more than I need. A reasonable AIO looks the way to go. I don't think I'd have to think about under-volting a 13600 to keep things in check. Which for me is a good thing, the more things to adjust just opens the door on inadvertently getting it wrong.

I've just run through a couple of comparative builds and I'm surprised how close the total is. I'm sure I'll be chopping and changing for days yet. (I've only put a DVD version of windows in so I don't forget it cost it in) £1400 is right at the top of what I wanted to spend.

YOUR ORDER

YOUR ORDER
1 X AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Six Core 5.30GHz (Socket AM5) Processor - Retail - £319.99
SKU: CP-3DG-AM
1 X Asus TUF Gaming X670E-Plus (Socket AM5) DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £329.99
SKU: MB-6JA-AS
1 X Kingston FURY Beast EXPO 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF556C36BBEK2-32) - £199.99
SKU: MY-29U-KS
1 X Samsung 980 Pro 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive - £128.99
SKU: HD-248-SA
1 X Phanteks Revolt Pro 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Combo Supply - £119.99
SKU: CA-08A-PT
1 X Microsoft Windows 11 Home 64-Bit DVD - OEM (KW9-00632) - £127.99
SKU: SW-18J-MS
1 X be quiet! Pure Loop 2 FX 280 ARGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 280mm - £119.99
SKU: HS-025-BQ
1 X Lian Li Lancool II ARGB Midi-Tower Case - Black - £90.95
SKU: CA-77T-LL
1 X Seagate 2TB Barracuda HDD 7200RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST2000DM008) - £49.99
SKU: HD-3A5-SE

Grand Total: £1,502.57 (Edit to 670E)


YOUR ORDER
1 X Intel Core i5-13600KF (Raptor Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail - £334.99
SKU: CP-6B8-IN
1 X Gigabyte Z690 UD AX - Intel Z690 DDR5 ATX Motherboard - £209.99
SKU: MB-5A9-GI
1 X Kingston FURY Beast EXPO 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF556C36BBEK2-32) - £199.99
SKU: MY-29U-KS
1 X Samsung 980 Pro 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 4.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive - £128.99
SKU: HD-248-SA
1 X Phanteks Revolt Pro 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Combo Supply - £119.99
SKU: CA-08A-PT
1 X Microsoft Windows 11 Home 64-Bit DVD - OEM (KW9-00632) - £127.99
SKU: SW-18J-MS
1 X be quiet! Pure Loop 2 FX 280 ARGB High Performance CPU Water Cooler - 280mm - £119.99
SKU: HS-025-BQ
1 X Lian Li Lancool II ARGB Midi-Tower Case - Black - £90.95
SKU: CA-77T-LL
1 X Seagate 2TB Barracuda HDD 7200RPM 256MB Cache Internal Hard Drive (ST2000DM008) - £49.99
SKU: HD-3A5-SE


Grand Total: £1,397.57
 
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The reason the price is comparable there is you have a B650 AMD board and a Z690 Intel board. The Z690 is the more fully featured, B650 more budget or mid range oriented. As to if you'd actually miss anything on the B650 board, I couldn't say! They're not in equivalent "performance / feature" brackets but I honestly couldn't tell you if you'd find the AMD board lacking.

The deciding reason I got the motherboard I went for in the end was the number of usb ports on the back....
 
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Parsley said:
The reason the price is comparable there is you have a B650 AMD board and a Z690 Intel board. The Z690 is the more fully featured, B650 more budget or mid range oriented. As to if you'd actually miss anything on the B650 board, I couldn't say! They're not in equivalent "performance / feature" brackets but I honestly couldn't tell you if you'd find the AMD board lacking.

The deciding reason I got the motherboard I went for in the end was the number of usb ports on the back....
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Good shout, I hadn't purposely picked a lower tier board. Stuck a 670E in which bumps the difference to over a £100+, which is what I was expecting on my first run through.
 
As others have said, it's hard to go wrong between AMD/Intel these days but if you don't want to pay ludicrous prices on the latest generation then the 5800X3D is a great choice for gaming and keeps up with the latest offerings for a lot less money. Ultimately it all depends on your use case though and how long you want to keep the platform/consider upgrading in the future (eg going for DDR5 and picking a cheap kit with the intention of upgrading later on.

In terms of air you can definitely get away with a beefy air cooler, the only thing you might end up sacrificing is a maximum boost speed but tbh as long as you're not in a horribly air flow restricted case then you shouldn't struggle. Water comes down to noise levels for most people on this forum that I've seen and these days, that's becoming quite a luxury considering the price of entry.
 
SirConfused said:
As others have said, it's hard to go wrong between AMD/Intel these days
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Aye I think that's the nub of it. It's easy to go down the rabbit hole of picking the sweet spot for every single item in the build and spending hours/days chasing your own tail. We all do it to some extent because we want the best bang for our buck. But the margins between the myriads of benchmarks are in most cases a few %. Something you'll never notice in varied use anyway.
I do slightly favour AM5/DDR5 as it's new the longevity should be better. I don't upgrade much but it would be nice to still have a choice of something current down the line. I'm in no rush so I may as well wait to see if any tempting deals pop up via the Black Friday sales. I doubt it as it's all new, but we can hope.
 
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