overclocking temps on q9650

koksNikol,

What is your ambient temperature?

I've owned a Q9650 and have built and overclocked several Q9650 rigs to 4.2GHz. To this day, the Q9650 is my favorite Intel processor, in company with the i7 2600K.

Also, if you click on the link that tea urchin provided, I am the author of that Guide.

Intel's specification for DTS (Digital Thermal Sensor) accuracy is +/- 5C, which means that the maximum deviation between the highest and lowest Cores should be 10C. It looks like yours is a little outside spec.

This is not an uncommon problem. You can run a sensor test by using Real Temp, which was developed especially for Intel processors. The sensor test will reveal why your temperature spread is so wide.

Intel's Thermal Specification is "Tcase", which is CPU temperature, not Core Temperature. Tcase for the Q9650 is 71C: http://ark.intel.com/products/35428/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q9650-12M-Cache-3_00-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB

Core temperature is 5C higher than CPU temperature due to the differences in sensor type, location and calibration. Tcase + 5 makes the corresponding Core temperature 76C. <-- This is your spec.

Regardless of the spread in your Core temperatures, they're well below spec.

Here's the full specs for the Q9650:

Core 2 Microarchitecture 45 Nanometer: Q9650 E0 (TDP 95W / Idle 16W)

Standard Ambient = 22C
Tcase (CPU temp) = 71C
CPU / Core offset + 5C
Tjunction (Core temp) = 76C
Tj Max (Throttle temp) = 100C

Intel desktop processors have thermal sensors for each Core, plus a sensor for the entire processor, so a Quad Core has five sensors. Heat originates within the Cores where Digital sensors measure Core temperatures. A single Analog sensor under the Cores measures overall CPU temperature.

Here's the normal operating range for Core temperature:

80C Hot (100% Load)
75C Warm
70C Warm (Heavy Load)
60C Norm
50C Norm (Medium Load)
40C Norm
30C Cool (Idle)

Your highest temperatures will occur when running test utilities. Temperatures are typically lower during real-world everyday workloads such as processor intensive applications or gaming.

The relationship between Core temperature and CPU temperature is not in the Thermal Specifications; it's only found in a few engineering documents. In order to get a clear perspective of processor temperatures, it's important to understand the terminology and specifications, so please read this Tom’s Sticky:

Intel Temperature Guide - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html

Thanks,

CT