How warm would you expect a CPU Heatsink to be?

[R.C.Anderson]

I just opened up my case to see how I could fit some watercooling rads, and to lean the dust out of the filters, and I noticed that my Noctua D14 is cool to the touch, even though my CPU (2500K) is at around 50C (It's under about 50% load) I would have thought that the HS would be warmer than that if the CPU is that warm.

Does this mean the heat isn't transferring to the HS very well, or is it expected?

 

[arknor]

cpu is deep inside, the bottom of the heatsink will probably feel slightly warm to the touch

 

[R.C.Anderson]

Yea, sorry, wasn't clear enough, even the heatpipes at the bottom of the heat sink aren't very warm, they're slightly warmer than the top, but still not as warm as I was expecting.

 

[Jayster]

What are you running the chip at?
The 2500k is not exactly the warmest cpu.

 

[R.C.Anderson]

I haven't actually got round to overclocking it again since getting my B3 board, so it's just stock, about 1.2V according to CPU-Z

 

[RiseAgainst]

Try reseating ? and just a pea sized dot of TIM. My freezer pro rev 2 is warm/ hot to the touch as about 50 degrees on my phenom 9550

 

[Tealc]

A heatsink shouldn't get very warm. It only needs to be a few degrees above ambient to function.

A hot heatsink could suggest it's at it's thermal limit, or it's a passive or under a slow moving fan.

You will want to stress test that CPU and verify your temps are consistent with others results before overclockinh.

50 degrees on one CPU can be totally different to 50 degrees on another CPU as regards the amount of heat energy that will be dissipated. A small area at 50 degrees has less heat energy than a big one and I believe this is why the AMD CPUs generate so much heat at 50 degrees compared with Intel CPUs which produce comparatively next to nothing at 50 degrees.

 

[koolpc]

My heatsink is cool to the touch. Always has been