Highest impact upon CPU temp..?

[miseryguts]

I'm trying to teach myself overclocking (i7 920 2.66 stable at 3.2Ghz) and was wondering raising/lowering what settings within the bios has the most dramatic effect on the CPU temp..?

Using Core Temp i am hovering at around the 60 degree mark without load (i don't have an aftermarket cooler yet) and am thinking that this is a little bit high, does the CPU Vcore affect this temp..? and if so how low could i drop it whilst maintaining the stable 3.2 overclock..?

Thanks.

 

[Surveyor]

Using Core Temp i am hovering at around the 60 degree mark without load (i don't have an aftermarket cooler yet) and am thinking that this is a little bit high

It's a lot high.

I hate to think what the load temperature is.

I suggest you leave well alone until you get a better cooler.

 

[RobSmith]

Vcore is what will affect the temperatures of your CPU the most, as well as the ambient temperature of the room, and the efficiency of airflow through your case - this will be greatly improved with an after market cooler.

Until you get an after market cooler I would suggest dropping the overclock down a bit. As for testing the lowest stable voltage for an overclock it is a rinse repeat process - find a Vcore that you know works and gradually reduce by 0.050, running tests after each increment drop. If your systems starts to hang up then you know the voltage is not enough for the overclock, so you'll need to go back up to last stable voltage you found.

 

[joeyjojo]

The temps are dependent on the power of the chip and the thermal resistance of the heatsink. The latter is to do with the construction of the heatsink.

The power of the chip is dependent on the clock frequency and the voltage. It goes linearly with frequency but quadratically with volts. For this reason you will want to keep volts low if poss.

 

[Skepticx]

If at idle you CPU is at 60c go buy a third party cooler