Temperatures
- Thread starter RichB
- Start date
How long is a piece of string? There’s really no fixed temperature target for what your loop should produce, because there are a ton of factors affecting the results.
At idle it’s hard to name an exact figure because it depends on the ambient temperature of your room, your fan profile and chassis (there’s more to temperatures than just the loop). Also, individual components vary even within the same model. And of course it depends whether you include the GPU and CPU in the loop - although I guess with AiO coolers, not many people are doing a CPU-only loop these days
But in most situations a “true” idle (where your CPU and GPU are averaging 0-2% load) should usually be something like 5-10 degrees above ambient (so in a typical room, 25-30’c)
Load is even harder to specify a figure for because it depends on exactly how you generate the load (something that uses AVX instructions, for example, will usually generate more heat) and how long you run it for, plus even details like how you cool the rest of the room (if I have air conditioning in a big room and you have a box room without much ventilation, then your room will heat up and so you’ll see higher temperatures under prolonged load)
That said, a good loop with a stock or modestly overclocked CPU/GPU should usually be around 40 degrees above ambient, pushing towards +60 with a more aggressive overclock. So that’s typically going to be 60-80 degrees in most rooms.
If you’re seeing temps much above 80 without a very aggressive overclock, something is probably wrong. Between 60 and 80 is normal but might be worth looking at if you’re in the 70-80 range, especially if your room is cool and you’re not pushing the PC excessively hard.
At idle it’s hard to name an exact figure because it depends on the ambient temperature of your room, your fan profile and chassis (there’s more to temperatures than just the loop). Also, individual components vary even within the same model. And of course it depends whether you include the GPU and CPU in the loop - although I guess with AiO coolers, not many people are doing a CPU-only loop these days
But in most situations a “true” idle (where your CPU and GPU are averaging 0-2% load) should usually be something like 5-10 degrees above ambient (so in a typical room, 25-30’c)
Load is even harder to specify a figure for because it depends on exactly how you generate the load (something that uses AVX instructions, for example, will usually generate more heat) and how long you run it for, plus even details like how you cool the rest of the room (if I have air conditioning in a big room and you have a box room without much ventilation, then your room will heat up and so you’ll see higher temperatures under prolonged load)
That said, a good loop with a stock or modestly overclocked CPU/GPU should usually be around 40 degrees above ambient, pushing towards +60 with a more aggressive overclock. So that’s typically going to be 60-80 degrees in most rooms.
If you’re seeing temps much above 80 without a very aggressive overclock, something is probably wrong. Between 60 and 80 is normal but might be worth looking at if you’re in the 70-80 range, especially if your room is cool and you’re not pushing the PC excessively hard.
Man of Honour
Without any more details it's impossible to say and even then it depends on so many factors. Room temp, radiator size and thickness, number of radiators, size, speed and number of fans, case and fan setup, pump and pump speed, overclocked or stock and to a much lesser extent the thermal paste used will all determine how effective a water cooling loop is.
Soldato
At idle with fans running, maybe high 20s, low 30s. But that's based on the assumptions that your ambient is low 20s and your fans are actually pushing some air e.g. >600rpm on a minimum of a decent 360mm rad. i9 plus a 2080ti should really have more like a 240 for each one.