Max Acceptable Temperature?

[johnjk]

What is the max acceptable temperature for a dual core opty 165?

I am currently overclocking my newly purchased Opteron 165. I used Artic Silver 5 and my Zalman CNPS9500 HSF fan. I am still in the burn in period. It was installed Friday night less than 24 hours ago. I tried to take it over 2.85 GHz but was having error in Prime95 with one of the cores. I raised the voltage above stock to 1.47V Vcore. I now have a 25 min stable Prime95, but stopped before continue test as CPU temp is now listed on speed fan and asus pc probe II as 54 degrees C. So what is the max temp that is acceptable?

 

[CompuTronix]

What is the max acceptable temperature for a dual core opty 165?...I used Artic Silver 5 and my Zalman CPS9500 HSF fan...I tried to take it over 2.85 GHz but was having error in Prime95 with one of the cores. I raised the voltage above stock to 1.47V Vcore. I now have a 25 min stable Prime95, but stopped before continue test as CPU temp is now listed on speed fan and asus pc probe II as 54 degrees C. So what is the max temp that is acceptable?

My previous rig was an Opty 170 OC'd to 3.0Ghz.

Model: OSA170DAA6CD
Stepping: CCBBE 0610DPMW
Serial: 1430261C60932
Core: Toledo

The following link is to AMD's White Papers:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_739_9003,00.html

Publication #30417 page 41 shows the Power and Thermal Data Sheets for the Opty 165, 170 & 175. Tcase max is 65c, which is an absolute limit. For an OC'd system, 50c is acceptable, 55c is warm, 60c is hot, and 65c is overtemp, as displayed in BIOS, motherboard utilities, and SpeedFan.

--60--
--55--
--50-- Load
--45--
--40--
--35--
--30-- Idle

At 54c, you might consider improving your case cooling, especially if your GPU is a model that recirculates hot air, instead of using rear exhaust.

Hope this helps. 8)

 

[johnjk]

An uncharecteristically succint and direct reply that was very informative and provided links. I'm shocked. Thank you so much.

By the way, my video card is of the rear exhuast type and mb sits around 36 C, throughout the process, up from an idle of 34 C (30-32 C before new opteron overclock). I think it may need some more time to burn in.

 

[chuckshissle]

Well first of all you don't need Prime or other stress test of how stable your system. It's a just synthetic and not real. The best test for your system is to run your most demanding application of your pc like your games for example. Yeah, If I overclocked my 840 to 4Ghz, I may have errors hours of Prime95 but I have run and multitask my pc with games and other applications and runs fine. So that said, test your pc with it's real applications.

As for the temps, the "safe" limit or ideal temp threshold should be 60-65c and anything higher than that should be taken into consideration specially at overclocking. Do you have a side fan on your case?

 

[johnjk]

I have 2 x 80mm air intake fans on the front, and 80mm air intake fan on the side over the processor, an 80mm air output fan on the top, 2 x 80mm output fans from PSU, a zalman cnps9500 (92mm) CPU heatsink fan, and a 120mm output fan on back. Case fans use Speed fan and have them at 35% if env<35, 50% if env <40, and then 100%. As such, they are currently only at 50%% to cut down on noise.

 

[chuckshissle]

Your temps are normal and good. You can lower the temps by increasing the intake to your side panel and directs more cool air to the cpu cooler. You can also use air ducts to pinpoint the cooler air intake to the cpu cooler fan, that way you have the best cooling performance on that CNPS9500.

 

[Featherstone]

I personally think Zalman's are overrated and would buy a differend HSF if you are going to push it farther or are really worried about temps.


Best HSF out there- $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835154001


Best HSF for the money imho- $35 (you can probably find it for $20 or so if you look around, seen some links on the forums here somewhere...)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835186134


If you're looking to control CPU temps i think that this would be much more help then spending money on increasing case ventilation... but both would be even better

 

[CompuTronix]

As for the temps, the "safe" limit or ideal temp threshold should be 60-65c and anything higher than that should be taken into consideration specially at overclocking.

"The following link is to AMD's White Papers:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_739_9003,00.html

Publication #30417 page 41 shows the Power and Thermal Data Sheets for the Opty 165, 170 & 175. Tcase max is 65c."

Most overclockers agree that 50c is "safe" or ideal, 55c is warm, and 60c is too hot for an OC'd CPU. Anything higher than 65c exceeds spec, which is clearly beyond consideration. 8)

 

[ninjaquick]

do the same temps go for my X2 4600+?

 

[CompuTronix]

do the same temps go for my X2 4600+?

Publication #30430 page 92 shows the Power and Thermal Data Sheets for the X2 3800, 4200 & 4600. Tcase max is 71c."

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_739_7203,00.html

This is 6c higher than the Opteron, likely due to the X2 4200 having only 512Kb cache per core. 8)

 

[johnjk]

Looks as though things are improving of sorts. My max temp has decreased from 54C to 52C on Sunday. Today my max temp is 50C 8) . Looks as though things have stabilized here, but I'll have to wait and see.

Thanks all for the help.

 

[CompuTronix]

Looks as though things are improving of sorts. My max temp has decreased from 54C to 52C on Sunday. Today my max temp is 50C . Looks as though things have stabilized here, but I'll have to wait and see.

Sounds good. Are you still at 2.85Ghz and 1.47 Vcore? What is your ambient room temp, and is it consistent?

 

[johnjk]

No, I bumped it to 2.925 GHz (Vcore still at 1.47) this afternoon, but 1 core (core 0) is not stable at all at this speed. I may have to bump it back down. The ambient room temp is 69-71F and is fairly consistent at that temp as my girlfriend likes it HOT .

Please refer to the following link to see info about or contribute to the bad core issue:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/core-STUD-DUD-Opty-Overclock-ftopict218757.html

 

[CompuTronix]

No, I bumped it to 2.925 GHz (Vcore still at 1.47) this afternoon, but 1 core (core 0) is not stable at all at this speed. I may have to bump it back down. The ambient room temp is 69-71F and is fairly consistent at that temp...

With your temp settling in at 50c, your Opty will probably tolerate ~ 1.52 Vcore, and might allow you to achieve stability at 3.0Ghz, but your temp will probably peak ~ 53c, which is still borderline OK. My former 170 showed very similar behavior. 8)

 

[johnjk]

Unfortunately my motherboard lacks dual core Vcore settings above 1.4 + 10%. Although it was an initially a well reviewed board (ASUS A8R-MVP), I have had more than a few problems with it (like the limited ram divider options).

By the way, my temps never exceed 48C while gaming.

 

[CompuTronix]

Unfortunately my motherboard lacks dual core Vcore settings above 1.4 + 10%. Although it was an initially a well reviewed board (ASUS A8R-MVP), I have had more than a few problems with it (like the limited ram divider options).

By the way, my temps never exceed 48C while gaming.

Gaming is typically very GPU bound, so 48c makes sense. Sorry about your MB's Vcore limitations, but if your're able to achieve stability with your Opty 165 at 2.8 to ~ 2.9Ghz, that's most excellent!

 

[johnjk]

I said I would be happy with 2.8, but knowing I am limited by my motherboard leaves me somewhat unsatisfied. Any thoughts on core 0?

Am I just going to have to call it good at 2.8 or will a burn at this speed help any?

I have heard of people having better stability or lower required vcore after a burn in, but I am skeptical. Please contribute to other thread, as I try to make threads useful for others who search later on.