FX-8350 temps on water cooler

[Rainmaker]

I built my new PC (specs in sig), and I ditched the stock cooler for a CoolerMaster Seidon 120V version 2 water loop. They get great reviews for the price (£35) and it's running practically silently even with the included fan. I plugged the rad fan into CPU_FAN on the mobo, though it's set to 100% all the time in the BIOS anyway. The block/pump is plugged into CHASSIS_FAN1 to be safe and make sure it gets 100% power all the time (without the BIOS trying to throttle it for any reason).

Our house is a really warm new build, and I mean to the point room temps hit 30oC on a normal summer day with doors/windows open and no heating etc. That said I'm still thinking this is running a tad on the warm side compared to everyone's reviews etc. I'm running the chip at stock atm (I do plan to OC once cooling is sorted), and the ASUS smart power save/CPU throttling/Cool n Quiet is enabled. As such the chip goes to 100%/4.0GHz under load but throttles down cores and speeds when idle.

Idle: 33oC on boot or sitting idle in BIOS. Currently 43oC with a browser open and a game paused in the background with 3% CPU usage. [ETA back to 36oC now Steam is closed]

Load: 64oC after 15 minutes of Prime95 on all 8 cores.

Every review of this cooler that I've read said they're getting idles in the low 20s (probably impossible in this house to be fair) with fully loaded torture test highs of 35-40oC. With that in mind my temps at stock seem rather too high with no real room to even attempt an OC. I did do a quick and dirty 'max performance' automatic OC in the BIOS and it was running at 4.6GHz at less than stock volts (1.34v) which leads me to think this chip will be sweet once cooling is sorted.

The only thing that's niggling me (and hence this thread) is that when installing the cooler the TIM quickly 'shot out' of the little tube. Rather than play 'hunt more isopropyl alcohol and another lint free cloth' I just shrugged and fitted the cooler anyway. I'm not talking a huge amount here, btw! Perhaps a bit less than a 5p coin's worth, or a rather large pea if you will. I'm just wondering if the TIM is too thick and it's causing a bit of a thermal block. Is it really worth me taking the cooler block off and reseating it with less TIM (or something other than the 'free' Cooler Master stuff that came with the kit)?

TL;DR - My all in one water cooling kit is nice, but my FX-8350 is hitting mid 60s under heavy load. Is it my warm house or do I need to stop being lazy and reseat the cooler after ordering some proper TIM?

 

[edwarhys]

I had an FX8320 4.4GHz Raijintek Water cooler and was getting 49C Max Temp with fans running slow while stress testing.

Make what you want of that lol

 

[Rainmaker]

Looks like I'm re-seating the cooler then lol. Thanks.

 

[Rainmaker]

Spent the time to reseat the cooler tonight. I used a fair bit less TIM (a small grain of rice line in the centre) and tried again. With the 120mm front intake and 120mm rad/exhaust spinning at 2,200rpm I'm still getting 33oC idle and 60oC load after about 15 mins of prime95 small FFTs. That's measuring the temp with Asus' own utility.

I've set a large (~40GB) video file converting in Freemake - which is multicore aware - and currently it's hovering around 90% CPU usage across all cores. HWMonitor says:

CPU package min 11oC max 43oC
CPU (socket?) min 32oC max 55oC

That's with everything at stock (4GHz, 3.375v). This still seems way too high under load for a stock chip. Do you think it's worth trying a different fan on the rad? One reviewer on Amazon said he dropped his load temps 10oC by switching the included fan for a Corsair SP120, so I might give that a go. I know the FX chips like to run toasty, but the load temps are giving me very little wriggle room for an OC.

ETA: After some digging I've found info direct from AMD. Apparently the temp sensors on FX chips aren't what they seem, and the package sensor (the core temp) readings are based on an 'algorithm' not a real sensor - hence the impossible 11oC idle readings. AMD say on FX chips you should use the socket readings for your idle temp and the package/core temp as the load temp (as that reading is only accurate above 45oC). In that case my rig is actually running at 32oC idle and 45oC under load, which makes way more sense.

 

[tomtalk24]

Every review of this cooler that I've read said they're getting idles in the low 20s (probably impossible in this house to be fair) with fully loaded torture test highs of 35-40oC.

Yep, that's Core temp. So it takes the real temp and the CPU load to work out / predict your CPU temp. So you'll get idle at 10-20oc and load upto 50oc. 10oc is impossible unless you have refrigeration or your home is 10oc even then your going to add 2-5oc to that. Plus the Core temp shoots up and down far too fast to be a true reading.

Use the Aux as its more safe imo. Your core will never overtake it. As for comparison my waters set to 30oc, and my (8350 4.6) Aux idles at 35, and hits around 50-55 under load (external 3x 140mm rad).

I would say resit your block as I think a pea is too much, I use a rice amount if that makes sense. When I look at my block when I take it off its lovely and covered. Also remember your rad is internal so will be pulling case heat. See what the ambient case temp is when doing stuff. This led me to go external due to GPU heat etc.

ps, if you can buy an Aquaero. Brilliant toy to have!