i7-4790k overheating without overclock

Couple Things:

1. You should expect the CPu to run a bit hotter at 4.4 Ghz than it did at 4.2 Ghz. Yes, we have anew thermal design but you have also jumped from 4 cores to 8 cores.

Here we see 68C at 4.2 Ghz
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_4790k_processor_review,11.html

Note also what its says here regarding overclocking:

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/core_i7_4790k_processor_review,21.html

Make sure your processor is properly cooled with enthusiast grade heatpipe cooling or liquid cooling

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They managed to get to 4.8, presumably with a better cooler.

2. The Hyper 212 is one on the "best coolers for the money", but oft when it is recommended, that last part (for the money" gets left off. You will get 7 - 10C cooler temps with a Phanteks PH-TC14-PE, maybe a degree or so less with a Noctua DH-14 or Thermalright Silver Arrow.

3. If ya read the AS website it says the TIM takes 200 hours of thermal cycling to cure..... note, not 200 hours of use, but 200 hours of thermal cycling. What does that mean, only AS folks know, ..... to my mind if you run outer for 7 hours, it spends 5 minutes warming up and 5 minutes cooling down. So is that 10 minutes of thermal cycling or is it something els e?

4. Finally, it's summer .... your ambient is likely higher than it was when you tested the 4670k

5. Case ventilation is obviously not an issue as, at least i have assumed, you are talking same rig with a CPU upgrade.

Questions:

1. What is "under load" ? If that means P95 w/ AVX, stop. Use something more akin to actual extreme usage like RoG Real Bench. P95 puts unrealistic loads on the PC, loadings that can't be duplicated by anything else .... except other synthetic benchmarks. P95 is no longer a useful OC test tool.

2. Vcore is the best indicator of heat levels you should expect. Run RoG Bench with HWINFO running and report your highest core temp and Vcore

There has been a few instances lately of people reporting issues with H80i coolers not fitting correctly and needing additional spacer for a tight fit.

One of those people shared a neat trick that helps in problem determination. (Yes, I know you're running on a Hyper Evo )

The causes of a CPU runnig too hot I can summarize as follows:

1. The CPU chip is defective with the TIM under the "lid" applied incorrectly. Or the ship is reporting incorrect temperatures. With these cases, you have to eliminate all the others and then RMA the chip, as there is no other solution.

2. Your temperature monitoring is incorrect or not updated. Solution would be to run multiple monitoring and validate from mobo readings and perhaps an independent reading with a thermometer.


3. Case ventilation is inadequate. In this case (pun not intended) you can usually observe a drop in temperatures by leaving the case open. The case interior would also be hotter than normal for temperature readings. The air vented out of thec ase should be noticeably warmer than ambient.

4. The cooler is not applied correctly. This is where the handy tip comes in. If the cooler is not hot when the CPU is reporting hot tempts, then there may be an issue. Press down on the cooler, thus adding additional pressure and improved contact between the cooler heatsink and the CPU chip. If this creates a noticeable improvement in CPU temperature, then this is the problem.

5. The cooler may be defective - in the case of a liquid cooler, for instance, there may not be liquid, or the pump may not work; in the case of an air cooler, the heat pipes may be bad, or the heatsink surface may be warped). THen you have to RMA the cooler.

Hyperthreading doesn't add cores. And if the CPU is not under load, hyperthreading should be inactive.

Standard question, what's your vcore (cpu voltage) under load? Fix it to 1.25 and then go down as far as you can without getting unstable. Use override/static mode.

It doesn't help that the i7 4790k is excessively volted at its stock settings. You can actually overclock it so all 4 cores are at 4.4ghz and reduce the voltage to 1.2v and it will then run about 10C cooler than the stock settings. I was having similar issues as well on two different chips (I RMAd the first one thinking it was defective) and this worked like a charm to get my idle temps down to the low 20s (I'm using a Corsair H80i) and my temps under load are in the low 70s. Under the stock settings of 4.ghz with 4.4ghz turbo core, My temps were threatening 90 under load.

Honestly, I have to commend Intel because it takes a special kind of talent to make a CPU that runs cooler when it's overclocked.

They are virtual cores, not "physical cores". I always thought it be an od dterm to apply but it is the industry standard. You should really check some articles / reviews, that's what hyperthreading is .... it adds "virtual cores" . Or try running a synthetic benchmark and watch the 4 / 8 cores / execution units .

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/48391.aspx

Another significant performance difference is how the Core i7 and Core i5 products will be handling hyper-threading. Hyper-threading is a technology used by Intel to simulate more cores than actually exist on the processor. While Core i7 products have all been quad-cores, they appear in Windows [and every sythetic benchmark] as having eight cores. This further improves performance when using programs that make good use of multi-threading.

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http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1797851/questions-hyper-threading-cores.html

a core is when a cpu is essentially split into 2 or more cores, to allow multiple processes to run at the same time. hyperthreading is technology that allows two "threads"(or processes) to run on 1 core, making a 2 core processor into a 4 core. a thread is one process (or calculation). hyperthreading and dual cores splits the power between all the cores.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading

For each processor core that is physically present, the operating system addresses two virtual or logical cores, and shares the workload between them when possible. The main function of hyper-threading is to decrease the number of dependent instructions on the pipeline. It takes advantage of superscalar architecture (multiple instructions operating on separate data in parallel). They appear to the OS as two processors, thus the OS can schedule two processes at once. In addition two or more processes can use the same resources. If resources for one process are not available, then another process can continue if its resources are available.

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The additional "cores" have a great influence on the heat generated at higher overclocks. To get binned as an I7, the CPU has to be a bit more efficient so at stock, they usually run cooler than the i5, but as you OC, the extra 4 cores take their toll. As you can see below ya talking 7C at 4.8 GZ with HT on or off.



This becomes immediately apparent when you simply go into the BIOS and turn off hyperthreading. I can do a 5.0 Ghz OC on my son's 2600k but w/ HT on the temps start climbing into unsafe territory so he's limited to 4.8.

He has alternate boot profiles which he can load to 4.8 for regular usage but can also boot to 5.0 Ghz w/ HT off for extreme gaming.

Remember tho that the MoBo is auto adjusting for voltage based upon what they have determined with work with 99% of the CPUs out there. So it's bound to be conservative. How much you will be able to cut the voltage is basically CPU dependent.

Also, we have I think seen something akin to what AMD did with their latest GFX cards and that is overclocked the CPU in the box...... with 4th generation we saw only 0.1 Ghz separating the i5 and i7 .... that had most gamers doing i5 builds. This time around, they put 0.5 Ghz in between the two CPUs and I gotta believe that large gap has more to do with marketing and finance than any technical difference.

Hi Jack,

I'd like to point out that Prime95 version 26.6 is pre AVX, so it's still a good test for the 32 and 22 nanometer processors. It's available here: http://windows-downloads-center.blogspot.com/2011/04/prime95-266.html

CT

Yes, I am aware of that. I still have both and use them but nor for what you think. After doing my stress tests and getting an idea of where my temps are, I run P95 w/ AVX to "cook my TIM". AS5 is well known for taking at least 200 hours of "thermal cycling" to cure.... that's not 200 hours of use, that's 200 hours warming up and cooling down.....all that stuff in the middle don't count. I don't use AS5 for that reason but you can accelerate your cure time but running 5- 10C above your normal temps for a bit. So my max temp at 4.6 Ghz was 76C .... so I turned down the fans on the radiators and ran P95 to bring it up to 82-83C for 10 minutes and then let it cool. Afterwards, my CPU temps under normal conditions dropped to 74C.

But, that's not the point.... AVX's presence is not the problem ..... no program that uses AVX does at the extreme artificial rate that the new P95 does, so that's one issue. RoG Real Bench;s Open CL test is probably the most extreme case existing for AVX but it pales as to the impact on voltages and temps compared to the P95 synthetic test so what's the point of stressing for a condition that the CPU could never possible see under real applications ?

Secondly, and more importantly, if you are not testing AVX and all the other extensions present in Haswell and even IB CPUs CPUs (SSE, SSE2, AVX, AVX2, FMA, BMI and BMI2, etc) , your are not adequately testing your CPUs stability when these instructions are present. This was true even with IB..... but the P95 developers have been working on including all those.... not sure if they have caught up yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mkGQhE1o2w

Can start at 3:50 or so.

Thirdly, RoG Real Bench throws something at the CPU that none of the synthetic apps do..... they throw multi-tasking demand mixing editing, Open CL, rendering while playing a movie at the same time. This presents a unique challenge to a CPU rather than the single task of running P95. I think of P95 as juggling while RoG Real Bench is juggling while riding a unicycle, balancing a plate on your head and having to dodge veggies being thrown at ya tourists .

I think there has to be something else (problem wise I mean) going on with your rig. And I haven't heard of any issues mounting the H80i. I have one on my 4790k and it works great.

I have an MSI Z97M mobo (in a Corsair Air 540 case) and it mounted absolutely easy as a pie with MX-4 paste and my i7 4790k. My idle temps are in the 20's(C), and I have the "Enhanced Turbo" turned on in the MSI BIOS, which runs all four cores at 4.4GHz, 24/7. Both H80i fans are set to pull in outside air (I have a nice cool ambient temp in my office), and then I have three 140mm exhaust fans blowing out the hot air from my proc and the GTX 770 OC. One on top, and two on the front. I tried the fans both ways (this way and reversed) and this way is cooler. My rig runs very cool, about 5-10C cooler than my i7 3770k did with almost the same set-up. And like i said, this is at 4.4GHz! Real Temp shows 21/23/23/22C right now as I type this.

There does seem to be a lot of variance in the temp issues with this DC proc I'll give you that, and people are looking for reasons as to why this is, such as the first batch being bad (not true - I have first batch L3, and have had no probs), or the Intel secret TIM not being spread properly or even cured yet. All of these are certainly possible, but 9 times out of 10 its something else, something the builder did and just doesn't realize it yet.

And I've had a Hyper 212 EVO and love that cooler, but for the i7 4790k, I would go for something more beefy whether I was gonna OC or not. This is still a Haswell part after all.

You may have had a defective H80i, because that would be my first choice of coolers. Mine really works like a dream. BUT...You do need to make sure that a H80i is mounted tightly though, and I think this is a mistake being consistently made by people, because they are scared they're gonna crack their board, so they never get the waterblock tightened all the way down against the IHS. You have to screw it down really tightly. Just be super careful and you won't crack the mounting holes. I screwed mine down tight as hell and I know it's making good smooth contact on the IHS. Plus MX-4 paste is the way to go.

You absolutely should not be idling in the 40s. That's crazy warm unless you are in a hot room.

And I have ran PRIME95 and it does get pretty hot, but like someone here pointed out that is an extreme bench (and so is Intel Xtreme Tuning Utility which I ran as well), and not necessary. Under my "full load" (not the aforementioned synthetic utility benchmarking apps load), I get in the mid 40's(C). I'm talking BF4 on "Ultra" with twin 1920x1080 monitors, several browser windows open, iTunes running, and CPUz, RealTemp or Core Temp, MSI Afterburner, and Fraps all running I stay about 45C and Task Manager shows about 45% CPU usage.

Lets not kid ourselves about this proc, its not the OC'ing king everyone wanted (or that Intel said it would be), unless you are one of the lucky few who finds that golden 5GHz chip (and they are going to be rare just like the 4770k was). There will never be another Sandy Bridge. Time to move on.

But I'm not disappointed in this proc at all. It is freakin' awesomely fast, and runs cool as a cucumber at idle. I would buy it again in a heartbeat for a new build. It's a great part.

I know your Z87 board should work fine, but if you have the cash, you might consider getting a new MSI or ASUS Z97 board, a better cooler (use the H80i if you still have it), and see how things fare. You shouldn't be "put off" by CLCs. They are used as much or more than air coolers at this point, and leak accidents are extremely rare (and usually caused by rough mounting/handling anyway). And they typically perform better than air. I stand by the H80i. It is a great cooler and is very quiet.

At overclock, yes, that I will concede. Not at non-oc and at near idle.

You wouldn't have to re-purchase Windows 8.1. Microsoft changed that with Win 8. You can reuse the orig key you have (and you can download the ISO here onto a USB thumb drive):
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/windows-8-1-download/

Then just boot from a USB drive and enter your old key.

Even if you can't get Win 8.1 to install, just call Microsoft and they'll give you a new key. I would try a new Z97 board and then you could tell them your board crapped out and you need a new key if you have issues. They almost always give you one, and you're technically not lying.

And there are other good CLC's besides the H80i if you don't like it. But it is a quality cooler. Check some reviews on NewEgg, Tiger Direct and Amazon. Its pretty awesome.

Well of course, as discussed more threads = more heat and at idle the system isn't called onto run any cores. Try this:

1. Open Task Manager
2. Hit performance tab
3. Stare at screen
4. Report back on what you see, after the 1st blip, how many threads are running at above 0 %

But back to your original statement, while on that performance tab, tell me how many cores (graphs) you see. On i5, it's 4, on i7 it's 8 ..... and no

The number of cores (graphs) doesn't change whether stock or overclocked
The number of cores (graphs) doesn't change whether idle or under stress testing

Try also going to the processes tab:

1. Right click on any process
2. Select affinity
3. Count how many cores are listed.
4. i5's show 0,1,2,3 cores / i7's show 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7

And again:

The number of cores shown doesn't change whether stock or overclocked
The number of cores shown doesn't change whether idle or under stress testing




Cooling systems work on "Delta T"..... that is the Delta T remains constant ....well not theoretically true, it is for all practical purposes, as absolute zero is very very far away from the temperature range we are talking a bout. So in general, if 23C ambient gets ya gets ya 60C temps, 33C ambient will produce 70C temps

In OP, you said:

"My system idles at 42-49 degrees and on load goes 80+ degrees." and now

" now ...., I am getting roughly 30-35 degrees on idle now but still breaching 70 degrees

Seems pretty consistent

The stock CPU cooler is designed to run programs and games at stock speed. It is not designed to run artificial synthetic benchmarks that present unrealistic loadings that your CPU will never see. Run OCCT on a stock cooler at the default alarm / shut down settings (85CX) and the test will shut down in less than a minute.

There socket and mounting holes will not change with a new board.