phantomlimb,
On behalf of Tom's Moderator Team, welcome aboard!
At the top of all our Forums are "Stickies" which are informative Threads permanently "stuck" in place, so they're always available as quick reference material for everyone's benefit. Near the top of the CPUs Forum you'll see this Sticky:
Intel Temperature Guide -
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1800828/intel-temperature-guide.html
Tom's encourages Members to read the Stickies, since they often contain the answers to Member's questions. From our Guide:
" ... Intel’s specification for Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) response time is 256 milliseconds, or about 1/4th of a second. Since Windows has dozens of Processes and Services running in the background, it’s
normal to see rapid and random Core temperature “spikes” or fluctuations, especially during the first few minutes after startup, which should eventually settle.
Any software activity will show some percentage of CPU Utilization in Task Manager, where unnecessary Tray items, Startups, Processes and Services that contribute to excessive or continued spiking can be disabled. ... "
" ... 6th Generation processors introduced "Speed Shift" technology in Windows 10, which responds much faster to changes in workload than "SpeedStep" due to having many more Core speed and Core voltage transition levels.
Since 7th and 8th Generation Speed Shift is twice as fast as 6th Generation, some users complain of Core temperature spikes which cause fluctuations in fan RPM at idle. Motherboard manufacturers are currently developing BIOS fixes that include separate SpeedStep and Speed Shift settings with more flexible fan curves and time delay options. ... "
All processors have Core temperature spikes in response to various workloads, however, spiking on later processor Generations is more prevalent, as described above. The most effective ways to minimize spiking are listed below, according to impact:
Delidding
Better Cooling
Minimizing Vcore
Eliminating unnecessary Startups
If you're not experiencing fan cycling problems and don't wish to implement any of these steps, then ignore the spiking as it's not damaging to hardware, and can only be minimized but never completely eliminated.
Once again, welcome aboard!
CT
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