Temperature issues with i7 2600K, please help!

[MiniD011]

Hi guys, I recently bought a brand new setup and tried to overclock it for the first time. Now I am completely new to overclocking, but I spoke to a friend who said with the setup i should be able to achieve very high overclocks with ease. My setup is as follows:

CPU: i7 2600k
CPU Cooler: Coolit ECO ALC
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Pro
Graphics: Radeon HD6950
RAM: 8GB Kingston Hyper X Genesis 1600
HDD: 80GB SSD Intel 310 series, 1TB WD Caviar Black
PSU: Corsair TX650
Case: Antec 900

I tried to overclock to 4.2Ghz however using prime95 my core temps shot up to above 80C. I reduced this to 4.0Ghz but the temperatures under load is still 70C or so. Judging by what others have said these temperatures seem very high.

Also because I am new to this I dont understand the difference between Tcase and core temp, the Tcase for the i7 is 72C or so, but does this greatly differ from the core temp?

I am at work at the moment but plan to restore to defaults and monitor the temp then, both idle and under load, and will post as soon as I can. In the meantime any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Also if any additional info is required please let me know.

Thanks in advance,

Dan.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

For the average Sandy Bridge CPU, you should be able to do three things and get 4.5GHz easily:

1. Set CPU voltage to 1.3-1.35v
2. Set multiplier to 45x
3. Save and exit

Judging by the temps you are getting, either you have the CPU voltage set too high (or it's setting itself too high if you have it on Auto), or the CPU cooler isn't installed properly. Or it could even be something to do with the thermal compound (too thick or too thin).

Tcase is basically the temperature of the heat spreader that sits on top of the CPU die. The core temps are read from a sensor built into each core. The core temps will always be hotter than the Tcase temp.

 

[homegun]

You don't mention your voltages, and that could be where the extra heat is coming from.

Good idea to check your idle temps. If they're above 35C-40C (depending on ambient) you have a cooling problem. Remount your cooler. Get some Arctic Silver 5, follow the AS directions for your CPU:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appmeth/int/vl/intel_app_method_vertical_line_v1.1.pdf

It takes a while for AS5 to cure, but once it does it works very well.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

Arctic Silver 5 is only a middle-of-the-road thermal compound nowadays. I'm surprised so many people still default to recommending it as top dog, what with the 200-hour curing time (plus weird curing method) and electrical conductivity in addition to so-so performance.

 

[MiniD011]

Firstly thanks for the responses so far guys, I checked the voltage as it was on auto and it was defaulting to about 1.675v! I set this to manual and at 44x multiplier I could get the voltage down to just 1.310v, however the temperatures were still around high 60's - low 70's under 100% load. This still seemed a little higher than I wanted so I lowered the speed to 4Ghz and voltage was stable at 1.290v. I left realtemp running while I played a few games and after about an hours solid gaming the temperature maxed at about 59-60.

As I've mentioned I am very new to this, I've been running stress tests using Prime95, CPUID and Realtemp but just run the sensor test on Realtemp through P95. Are there other tests I ought to be doing to ensure lowest temp and voltage? 4Ghz for me is acceptable but I really just want to preserve the life of the processor by minimising the temperature. Thanks again for all the input!

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

For a happy long term (five years or more) Sandy Bridge overclock, you need to do two things:
1. Keep the peak Prime95 core temps below 75ºC
2. Keep the CPU voltage below 1.4v
That's pretty much it.

Once you've decided on a final speed, run Prime95 Torture Test on the Blend setting for 24 hours. Assuming no errors, you're good to go. If you do have errors, you need to raise the voltage slightly and try again.

 

[MiniD011]

Fantastic, I will get that all sorted tonight and get back to you. Thanks again.

 

[bearclaw99]

Yeah 4 ghz is fine. You really won't notice a diff between that and 4.4