i7 4790k ~60C Idling W/O Stock Fan

Kildea

Honorable
Dec 27, 2013
4
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10,510
Hey everyone,

I decided to downsize my mid-size i5 3570k rig to a micro-ITX case. Realized that motherboards with 1155 sockets only have 4 SATA ports at the moment, so I bought an i7 4790k to go along with it, and to maybe upgrade in the future. This case required a CPU cooler no larger than 80mm.

I bought this SilverStone cooler for $26. In my previous case, I used a Zalman CNPS9700 ($50ish) and had load temps of around 48C, so I thought a $26 cooler would do the trick.

My i7, not overclocked, is idling around mid-60s. I don't want to start a game and play for a few hours for fear I'll damage the chip. This seems crazy to me! What's more, I don't believe the cramped case is messing with the temperatures - my HDDs are running at about 8-9 degrees cooler than in my old case.

Should I try the stock fan, to see if it works better than this SilverStone fan? Does anyone have any idea why I'm getting such high temps on a brand new CPU?

Thanks for your help!
 
Solution
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. You're expecting that thing to work like a decent cooler, but look at how little surface area it has...

If the stock cooler can fit, then sure, use it. That being said, don't expect anything that has to be THAT thin to work any kind of decently. If you can make a closed loop watercooler fit, this is the perfect scenario for it.

Now, that being said... your CPU is fine, and it's silly to not game because you're afraid the heat will damage the chip. If it heats up, ANY even semi-modern chip will throttle itself and slow down until the heat isn't an issue... and if that doesn't work, the system will shut down. It's pretty much impossible for you to damage the chip in your scenario.

Go ahead and...
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all. You're expecting that thing to work like a decent cooler, but look at how little surface area it has...

If the stock cooler can fit, then sure, use it. That being said, don't expect anything that has to be THAT thin to work any kind of decently. If you can make a closed loop watercooler fit, this is the perfect scenario for it.

Now, that being said... your CPU is fine, and it's silly to not game because you're afraid the heat will damage the chip. If it heats up, ANY even semi-modern chip will throttle itself and slow down until the heat isn't an issue... and if that doesn't work, the system will shut down. It's pretty much impossible for you to damage the chip in your scenario.

Go ahead and game and run a temperature monitoring program to see how bad things are getting under load.
 
Solution


Again, look at closed-loop watercoolers like the H80i. The pump is the only part on top of the CPU, so they're fairly low profile, and they can go on any 120mm fan mount - they stick out about the same width as two fans.