What exactly are you meant to trust for temp readings?

Gerard · 21 Jul 2006 at 17:24

Seriously is anything accurate at all these days? First of all we used to have to rely on the temperature in the bios which was meant to simulate load temps. Then we have programs bundled with motherboard which could be 10-15c inaccurate in either direction. Then we have mbm5 and speedfan which are meant to be the "holy grail" of temperature readings, now all of a sudden we have this core temp program that supposodly takes temperatures from inside the cores and theyre typically 10c or so higher than speedfan readings.

So seriously, what program are you meant to trust? I dunno if its funny or pathetic that intel an amd make these high speed cpu's but can't even bring out a program that is accurate for temperature readings. Speedfan was meant to be pretty accurate but this new core temp program makes speedfan look like an inaccurate pos. :confused:

Anyone have any opinions on what program they use and what reason why you trust them? Seems to be these days nothing is as accurate as its supposed to be.

Joe42 · 22 Jul 2006 at 01:10

I agree with you.

The only way to be sure is to stick a probe on the area in question.

I think cpus are less of a problem these days, its all the other things such as chipsets and voltage regulators that keep getting hotter and hotter that are causing problems, and i expect to get working themal probes on these things when i pay £150 for a board.

R B Customs · 22 Jul 2006 at 09:14

Gerard said:
this new core temp program

Say what ?

it is frustrating though. i had a mate singing and dancing saying his CPU ( P940) was 19C on a stock intel HSF and i couldnt even get that with all my watercooling, he wouldnt accept that the probes can be wrong !

i think my asus software that came with my P5WD2-E is pretty accurate, and reads the same as the bios.

but yes. its annoying

MikeTimbers · 22 Jul 2006 at 11:24

I'll say it again.

Alex von Kamm (writer of MBM) used to have a great page on how to calculate what value needed to be entered into MBM's "Compensation for this sensor" field for the temperatures. He went into great detail about how to find reviews of your heatsink with independent CW ratings, then how to calculate your CPU's power output (W) and from that what your actual load temperature (C) must be. Then your used the Compensation field until MBM showed the real temperature.

Sadly the page is long gone, reflecting probably that no-one wants to really know the real temperature - they want BIOSes that lie to them so they feel good. I remember when Abit brought out a new BIOS that showed more accurate (higher) temperatures than the previous BIOS and there were howls of protest around the Web from disgruntled Abit users. Abit duly released a "corrected" BIOS soon after.

ichabod crane · 22 Jul 2006 at 11:46

the abit is right, im still using the higher temp displaying one as its the most accurate when i tested against a temp probe, and so far has been most stable for my mobo

Gray_Mole · 22 Jul 2006 at 11:55

It's funny, the whole 'are my temps accurate' question at all.

I mean, the probe will give enough of a reading to let you know if you're really pushign the limits of any chip (except for a rare few very poor bios' that have been extremely inaccurate in one direction or another)

If your temps are reasonable and your overclock is 100% stable then the BS that the bios is spitting at you has very little meaning other than if you have many of the SAME cpu/mobo combinations running the same bios to compare to.

I've had stable systems running into 80c, and unstable systems at what looked like stock temps.

If your sytem is stable, at whatever overclock you're at, and it remains stable even when the weather heats up, then the temperature the bios reports, or in software as well (since it's getting it from the same place and just 'compensating' in whatever way the programmer feels necessary for the mobo in question) isn't that important other than knowing where you stand.

If you REALLY feel the need to know, or are testing for a review, then placing truly accurate probes on both the block, and the edge of the core, is about the only way you're ever going to know what your temps really are.

Edit:

I suppose I've just gotten used to dealing with phase cooling and the lack of much 'real' support in temp readings.

It's very rare that you'll ever get much accuracy or consistency with that at subzero temps, though the DFI Ultra-D and SLI-DR aren't too bad with consistency and it makes for a nice comparo between systems for those using similar setups to compare.

In that respect, I've gotten used to tuning and clocking to stability as opposed to temp limitations, as you won't normally see anything you can trust.

Cheers

Gray

Gerard · 22 Jul 2006 at 14:04

R B CUSTOMS said:
Say what ?

it is frustrating though. i had a mate singing and dancing saying his CPU ( P940) was 19C on a stock intel HSF and i couldnt even get that with all my watercooling, he wouldnt accept that the probes can be wrong !

i think my asus software that came with my P5WD2-E is pretty accurate, and reads the same as the bios.

but yes. its annoying

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