i5 4690k (Haswell) running too hot? (100 Celsius)

[Biggilus]

As title says.

Running Witcher 3 pretty much maxed to the hilt (1080p, GTX 770, 16gb ram) obviously not at 60fps in all situations bit still very playable and the CPU hits around 90-93 Celsius. Playing Path of Exile all 4 cores will be 98-100 Celsius.

Now this has been the case since I got the rig two years ago and all appears fine, just hot. I didn't get it from OcUK, infact from a supplier who builds it once I spec it. I remember the heatsink I wanted was allegedly too big for the case (some Corsair jobby with a side window), so opted for a slightly cheaper one.

Some months back I had a big dust/cat hair removal on all fans, fins and areas of the case and this made no difference.

It is clocked to a stable 4.1ghz (even though I hear the K variants can hit 4.4ghz reliably) but now and again I do think "is that too hot?".

My first thought is to take it apart, re-seat and re-paste the cpu? At work at the mo so couldn't tell you what heatsink I have, but that would be the next step I imagine.

Also, if this CPU doesn't melt is it still a worthy component to have for a while?

 

[Biggilus]

Using Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 at the mo. Or so the invoice says from two years back. I'll double check when I get home.
Would that suffice for a clocked 4690K?

Any other recommended air cooling fans/heatsinks for the CPU? I only have two extra 120mm fans, front and back.

If that's a rubbish heatsink I'll upgrade it, if not I'll reseat and repaste it and see what happens.

 

[Biggilus]

And the CPU voltages are all on auto, again couldn't tell you figures as I'm at work.

 

[Biggilus]

Ok cool thanks for the input, that's the weekend project sorted then.

Never played with voltages before either, time to start the learning!

 

[Biggilus]

Awesome thanks for the advice people. Got some thermal compound and cleaning solutions on the way (with haribo? Doubt it...), and still have a few cans of compressed air. I'll give it a good clean and see what happens, and mess with the voltages if need be after.

If this works out it'll be interesting to see any performance gains, never considered throttling due to temp

 

[Biggilus]

Had a look at delidding - a lot of reports of about 20 Celsius reduction is quite good. But... hell no, I don't trust myself doing that.

Before I get cracking with the cleaning are there any quick CPU benchmarks I can run just for curiosity's sake? Plan to do one as it is now (idles at around 40C), at stock settings, then again once all super clean.

 

[Biggilus]

So I set everythign in the BIOS back to "Auto" (I guess this is the shipped stock settings, the suppliers had it clocked at an unstable 4.6ghz so dunno exactly what they changed) and already there's improvements. The benchmark hit 556 (530ish when clocked and super hot) and running Witcher 3 max everything kept all cores to a cooler but still sweltering 77-80 Celsius. Used to tun 91-94 Celsius. Path of Exile still hit 100 on one core and high 90s in the others, guessing that's just PoE for you though.

Next step is the big clean!

Then the overclocking again.. but I'm not really sure what else to change other than the "Sync all cores" and hit that back up to 46 and see if it handles it. Interestingly I synced all cores to 35 thinking if I forced 3.5ghz it would be most ideal, but it ran similar 530ish on the benchmark with high temps.

 

[Biggilus]

Going to find out if/how I can get a report or plot of the voltages and temps with CoreTemp.

The motherboarrd is an Asus Z97-K socket 1150. First mobo I've had with an easy to navigate BIOS.

 

[Biggilus]

Just eyeballing the monitor now - again everything on auto and it kicks up the CPU to 3.9ghz with a VID of 1.2019 volts. Just numbers to me, that high I'm guessing?

 

[Biggilus]

Regardless, once it's all fresh clean and loved up, I'll fiddle with the overclock and see what is what then.

 

[Biggilus]

Finally got round to doing it, although I don't know if it will actually make a difference. Nothing seemed catastrophically out of place, fins clear and not that dusty on the inside (makes a huge difference not having a cat).

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[Biggilus]

Ok well whatever I did has seemed to make an instant difference. At the mo everything is on "auto" mode via the BIOS and the CPU will hit 3.8ghz. Pre-clean Witcher 3 would run in the high 70's, low 80's, and right now its mid-high 30's. I know this is only a 30 second observation but good jesus I wasn't expecting it to actually work (*any* upgrade/tweak I've done myself in the past 18 years has ended up causing me grief).

So I guess setting up the overclock is next on the menu

 

[Biggilus]

Ah fair enough. As it was only a millimetre or so coating the front part I didn't think much of it. Half a cat gone from the fins now though

So just tried the shipped settings (4.6ghz) and it didn't like it - usual hanging on desktop. Reverted to the adjusted stable 4.2ghz I've had it at for years and the benchmark went up to 609 (535 previously, temperature throttling) with cores hitting 68-74 Celsius. So that's, what, about a 15% performance bump?

Never done much with overclocking before, infact the last time I tired was adjusting jumpers on a pentium 2... Guessing I can get more out of it by manually adjusting voltages and bits and pieces. But I'll do some homework first.

Right now, I'm a happy chappy Thanks for all the input and advice people

 

[Biggilus]

Got her up to 4.4ghz now, temps in the low 70's gradually increasing under load to low 80's. Benchmark hitting 671 reliably now, instead of the old 520-530 at 100 Celsius.

Good times