Overclock Temps Safe?

Two more questions please:

What is your Vcore?

What cooler are you using?

Nice cooler, but your Vcore is too high for processor longevity. The maximum recommended Vcore for 22 nanometer processors is 1.300 volts. Voltage translates into Power (Watts), which is dissipated as heat.

Sorry to pop your bubble, but CineBench isn't the best utility to determine if your Core temperatures are appropriate, nor is BF4, or any other game for that matter.

Prime95 version 26.6 Small FFT's is the proper utility to test your Core temperatures, because it's a steady-state 100% workload. http://windows-downloads-center.blogspot.com/2011/04/prime95-266.html

That being said, CineBench doesn't load your processor heavy enough for a long enough period of time. Your Core temperatures will be 8C higher with Prime95 v26.6 Small FFT's.

Also, your ambient temperature at 20C is 2C below standard or normal room temperature, which is 22C or 72F. Taken together, that's 10C. Obviously you're located somewhere in a cool winter climate. What's going to happen to your Core temperatures in the summer?

Since you're already at 79C with CineBench, if you ran a proper thermal baseline test using p95 v26.6 Small FFT's at standard room temperature, you Core temperatures would be 89C, which is too hot.

Again, this points back to your Vcore being too high.

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)

The reason why there are so many conflicting reports of different temperatures, is that everyone tests their rigs with different stress tests, clock speeds, Vcore, coolers, ambient temperatures and measuring utilities that read two different types of processor temperatures.

Add to that the fact that almost no one bothers to look up Intel's specs, which aren't written to make any sense to anyone anyway. Then there's the term "load" that gets tossed around like gorilla poo in a cage. Load? Which load? What load? Load is a very subjective term.

Applications, rendering, encoding, gaming, web browsing, downloading and virus scanning are partial workloads with fluctuating temperatures, which aren't suitable for thermal testing or comparing temperatures, but they're great for endless speculation and debate. Add a graphics card that recirculates heat into your case, and your perspective is lost among all the variables.

The only way to make sense of this mess is to test your rig using a methodology that reduces the variables to the lowest common denominators. The Intel Temperature Guide explains how to do it in Section 12.

Please give it a read, so you can get yourself up to speed on this topic:

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

CT

Mid-70's are safe, but your Vcore still doesn't add up.

When tweaking your processor near it's highest overclock, keep in mind that for an increase of 100 MHz, a corresponding increase of approximately 40 to 50 millivolts (0.040 to 0.050) is required to maintain stability.

You dropped your overclock by 300 MHz, which would typically mean you would also drop your Vcore by 120 to 150 millivolts, but you only dropped it .085.

This suggests that at 1.265, you should be stable at 4.5 instead of 4.4. If you need a little more Vcore to be stable at 4.5, you've got some thermal headroom for it.

Are you sure that you've got your settings tweaked in properly?

Make sure that you're using Small FFT's and not Blend.

Also, what utility are you using to measure Core temperatures?

I was editing while you were posting. Please re-read my post above.

Open Hardware Monitor has been known to misread sensors. Just so we have another reference, please try Real Temp, which was developed specifically for Intel processors, or Core Temp, which also read your processor's power consumption in Watts. .

Also, please confirm that you were in fact using Small FFT's.

I recommend that you leave a post in the following Sticky thread: TEC/Peltier CPU Chilled Water Cooling - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282844-29-peltier-water-cooling

The author is 4Ryan6, a Retired Moderator and the most knowledgeable person I know concerning all aspects of liquid cooling. Tell him CompuTronix sent you over to his thread, and he will help you.

Once again, please confirm that you did indeed run Small FFT's and not Blend.

Thanks,

CT