How hot does your heatsink get?

[JIM_BOB7813]

My heatsink is nowhere near the temperature (touching it and it's barely warm) of my reported CPU load temp, which is 50° according to easytune and 60° on each core reported by Open Hardware Monitor. Even the backplate for the CPU cooler is warmer than the CPU block.

I'm wondering if it's a Haswell thing because of poor IHS heat transfer or something else.

I have 4670k at stock and Shadow Rock pro 1 cooler. Can someone with a similar CPU say whether their CPU actually transfers heat out properly?

Thanks

 

[Hotwired]

My heatsink is nowhere near the temperature (touching it and it's barely warm) of my reported CPU load temp, which is 50° according to easytune and 60° on each core reported by Open Hardware Monitor. Even the backplate for the CPU cooler is warmer than the CPU block.

I'm wondering if it's a Haswell thing because of poor IHS heat transfer or something else.

I have 4670k at stock and Shadow Rock pro 1 cooler. Can someone with a similar CPU say whether their CPU actually transfers heat out properly?

Thanks

Heatsink = large surface area with air being blown over it

Heatsink = cool
CPU = hot

Heatsink absorbs the heat and dissipates it, remaining cooler than CPU and thereby drawing more heat away from the CPU

This is normal and how it should be.

If your heatsink is really hot then its because it's struggling to dump enough heat. This may be because it's too small or fans are set too low or the overall case airflow is rubbish.

I do in fact have the latter situation in my ITX computer which has all of those things but I know that and don't use it for anything too taxing.

For my larger computer it's using a radiator as the heatsink which is little warmer than my hand even if the cpu is reading 70 degrees on a stress test.

Backplates have rubbish cooling and airflow typically and will warm up.

 

[Jumper118]

My heatsink is nowhere near the temperature (touching it and it's barely warm) of my reported CPU load temp, which is 50° according to easytune and 60° on each core reported by Open Hardware Monitor. Even the backplate for the CPU cooler is warmer than the CPU block.

I'm wondering if it's a Haswell thing because of poor IHS heat transfer or something else.

I have 4670k at stock and Shadow Rock pro 1 cooler. Can someone with a similar CPU say whether their CPU actually transfers heat out properly?

Thanks

Where are you touching the heatsink. Is has the cpu been under load for a while when you touch it? From what ive seen the core temps of the cpu is always hotter than the heatsink feels. The heatpipes at the very bottom should get slightly warm after long periods of load but when its idling or under light load they are usually stone cold.

 

[doyll]

Heat pipes work by boiling liquid over the CPU. Boiling / expanding into gas pushes the vapor toward the end of pipes. Vapor cools as it moves toward end of pipe,condenses back into liquid, and is absorbed by wick on inside of pipe. The wick draws the liquid back to the CPU. In order for this process to work the ends of pipes cannot be very hot.

 

[JIM_BOB7813]

Heatsink = large surface area with air being blown over it

If your heatsink is really hot then its because it's struggling to dump enough heat. This may be because it's too small or fans are set too low or the overall case airflow is rubbish.

For my larger computer it's using a radiator as the heatsink which is little warmer than my hand even if the cpu is reading 70 degrees on a stress test.

This doesn't sound right to me at all. With my older CPUs, the heatsink was warm/hot even when the cpu was at 40 degrees and pushing out warm air.

The heat should transfer out better than you describe. Feel the amount of hot air that comes from your loaded GPU and I bet that doesn't even get over 60 degrees. The gpu heatsink will be hot, as will the heatpipes.

 

[doyll]

The better the heat transfers from source to air the less heat you will feel in heatsink.

 

[OLDPHART]

I can touch my CPU Block when under full load as its H2o cooled custom loop thats why water will always be better than air cooling.

 

[Meoricin]

I can touch my CPU Block when under full load as its H2o cooled custom loop thats why water will always be better than air cooling.

I would be worried if you couldn't - 50-70 degrees isn't going to be -that- bad to touch, even if heatsinks and blocks did reach those temperatues (which they don't under normal circumstances).

Your CPU would have failed before it had heated the block and sink to the point where you couldn't touch it.

 

[Hotwired]

This doesn't sound right to me at all. With my older CPUs, the heatsink was warm/hot even when the cpu was at 40 degrees and pushing out warm air.

The better your heatsink is the cooler it will be, if it feels hot at a cpu temp of 40 degrees then it's on the small side of adequate.