How hot, is hot?

DampDog

DampDog

DampDog

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Sorry stupid question time, I sure the answer is buried in multiple threads going back years. But how hot is too hot for a CPU/GPU to me sat at?

Can't say as I've ever had any overheating issues, so never really checked. Just out of interest I had a quick look and both CPU & GPU's are sitting at 39-40. (Air cooled)

So how high is too hot?

Waits patiently for the 30, your rig is toast reply...;):):)
 
I always try to stay under 80C - while stuff these days is often rated for higher thermal degradation tends to increase dramatically the further you go above around 80C.
 
As above 100 for gpu ( i think nvidia rate there chips to be perfectly fine up to 105c, and CPUs i like to keep around 85 but i think Intel rate there CPUs to be fine at 97c so i like to stay a little under those just to be sure. When you see people saying a CPU and GPU over 60 is dangerous well they are just poorly educated.

And a GOOD water cooling system is much better than a good air cooling system.. however you pay respectively for both of these.
 
surely this depends on what cpu and gpu you are using,

i wouldn't want my 980ti getting to 100 celcius apparently they throttle at 91?
 
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Depends doing 94c on a R9 290 = thermal throttling, 105c on a 3570k = thermal throttling so it does just depend on what setup you run.
 
Remembering running a Phenom 965 BE, couldn't go past 62 degrees otherwise I feared it would melt.

Summer I was touching 61 degrees on battlefield. :p
 
DampDog said:
Is water cooling much better than a decent air-cooled setup?
Click to expand...

Water cooling can be superior to air cooling but you have to pay loads more to achieve it. Bang for buck, air cooling is untouchable. For instance, you can buy one of the best CPU air coolers, the Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro for around £70. It will keep any CPU cool and do so extremely quietly.

In the water cooling world £70 will buy you a bog standard all in one / closed loop cooler that will perform around the same as the BeQuiet cooler but will be a lot noisier with it's (most likely) Asetek pump and loud fans. Then you have to deal with the higher chance of failure (the pump) and the chance that it might leak, possibly damaging your other components.

A step up from the all in one / closed loop water cooler is the custom loop. The law of diminishing returns applies here. If you are looking to overclock your system to the max then this could be for you, but you have to be prepared to splash the cash and also deal with things such as regular maintenance all to achieve only slightly better results than can be achieved by air cooling. To be honest I think most people build custom loops for aesthetics more than anything. It certainly is very poor value for money. Think of it like hot rodders souping up their cars. Not very practical and mostly for show.

I personally would much rather look at a big chunky heatsink and fan than an almost bare motherboard!
 
While the upper limit is mid 80s for CPU and 100 for GPU, I try to keep CPU below 70 and GPU below 80. Overclocks are more stable at lower temps and it's also good for hardware life to keep it cooler.
 
I don't worry about it too much these days so long as it isn't throttling. My CPU has always run hot (retail hs+fan, probably not installed perfectly) which may diminish the lifespan but the way I look at it is, by the time it breaks it will likely be time to buy a new one anyway. Nearly 4 years old now which is the longest I've ever run the same CPU.
 
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