Temps??

[dph314]

I have a MSI P67a-G45 and a 2500k, and I was wondering about temperatures. BIOS only has 'CPU' and 'System' temps. I've read so much, and one thing said that this CPU temp isn't really important, it's the core temps that really matters. I have tried a bunch of monitoring programs to see what they say: EVGA E-Leet, HWMonitor, Speccy, AIDA64 Extreme, SpeedFan. They all have different temps, Speccy and AIDA64 seem to have the most, but one will have temps labeled "Motherboard" and "CPU", another will have "System" and the core temps, and all the temperatures are usually a little different by a few degrees. In EVGA E-Leet, I have TMPin0 thru 2. And TMPin1 always matches the 'CPU' temp from AIDA64 albeit always EXACTLY 10C lower. TMPin2 always matches 'System'. 'Motherboard' temp from one always matches 'System' in another. Sorry for rambling, just explaining. But what I want to know is, what temps should I be looking at and which ones are 'phantom' temps? Because BIOS only has 2 temps, CPU and System, so aside from the cores is there only 2 temp sensors in the computer? And is CPU temp important or is it the core temps that really matter?

 

[youngblood1017]

System and Mobo temps are probably the same but what they mean is ither the VRM's (voltage regulation modual) temp or the chipset temp. I know with E-Leet that definitely shows the chipset temp (if your wondering what your chipset is, you said you have a P67a-G45 well you have a P67 chipset). As for CPU temp its your actual processor temp nearly all CPUs have a temp gauge directly in the CPU. some actually measure the temp of all the cores others measure the temp of the CPU encloser or spot in contact with the heatsink. The i5-2500k has only one sensor reading the encloser temp. hope Ive helped.

 

[dph314]

System and Mobo temps are probably the same but what they mean is ither the VRM's (voltage regulation modual) temp or the chipset temp. I know with E-Leet that definitely shows the chipset temp (if your wondering what your chipset is, you said you have a P67a-G45 well you have a P67 chipset). As for CPU temp its your actual processor temp nearly all CPUs have a temp gauge directly in the CPU. some actually measure the temp of all the cores others measure the temp of the CPU encloser or spot in contact with the heatsink. The i5-2500k has only one sensor reading the encloser temp. hope Ive helped.

Yes you have, thank you. So those two temps, CPU and System, that are in the BIOS, are the only two temps I really have to worry about? Because Speccy and AIDA64 have a ton of temps, lots for the CPU, and a Motherboard Temp that differs from System temp (System is usually always in the high 20C's but the Motherboard temp from Speccy will usually be 35C). Also, the CPU temp that is shown in the BIOS, that I monitor in Windows with EVGA E-Leet, will under load get pretty high when its really hot out, sometimes up to 80C, but the cores will all be in the 50C's. Is this CPU temp, which you've said is the encloser temp, more important than the core temps? Because cores always stay low but 'CPU' will sometimes get pretty high. I'd like to think core temp is more important than this CPU temp, but I have no idea. Thank you for your help, any more would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kajabla]

The CPU will probably be the only thing that gets dangerously hot; you won't really have to worry about chipset/motherboard temperatures.
It's strange that the core temps stay depressed, as you've described. That sounds like a software or other monitoring error. They should be roughly the same as the other CPU reading(s), and certainly shouldn't be 30 degrees lower.

 

[buzznut]

So the CPU temp is an ambient temp at the heatspreader. It typically with most CPU's is right around 10C lower than the core temps, however I have no experience working directly with i5 processors. The core temps reflects the actual temperature inside the core of the CPU, so this is more important to my mind, however the ambient CPU temp can tell you something about how the CPU is doing.
Regardless of what software you use, I have never found one that reports temperatures with anything close to 100% accuracy. Think of it as a ballpark figure. Windows software has to interpret data from the BIOS, and sometimes something is lost in the translation. I have had hard drives regularly report they were running at -40C.

With core temps, you'll often have temps reported for each core. The most important one is the core that is showing the most activity, as in windows running single threaded apps.
I find coretemp is pretty accurate, so I recommend that one, although it won't give you other temps.

http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

With speedfan, you have a bunch of temps with little explanation what they mean. In my case, temp 1 is my graphics card, temp2 is CPU, Temp3 is my system or southbridge temp. Then I have a couple of hard drive temps followed by my core temp.

Also I find the BIOS readings to be the most accurate of all. If you find software that reflects what you see in BIOS, then I'd go with that.

 

[youngblood1017]

A mobo has a lot of features on it but the rule of thumb for any manufacturer lately has been cooling the VRM the chipset and the CPU so therefore those are the three temps i would look for. if your going to get into some serious tuning (beyond overclocking) you need to worry about all the variables not only in the CPU but the mobo aswell, however most people don't need to worry about them. 80C for the 2500k is ok aslong as its measured during whats called prime running time, witch basically a period of time where your CPU is in heavy use since turbo boost allows your CPU to run at its maximum speed only when required. however if your CPU is not doing strenuous activity and just sitting at idle and running at 80C i would take caution and get a new heatsink.

 

[dph314]

Yeah I have found E-Leet reflects the two BIOS temps. Only after playing Crysis or Metro for a while does the CPU temp get near 80C, the highest I've ever seen a core get is 60C. This is with a 36% overclock, 4.5Ghz @1.37v. So, my cooler seems pretty decent if keeping the cores under 60C. System temp from BIOS has always been under 34C. So when I read something from Intel that says Max Operating temp is 95C, they mean this CPU temp, or the cores? And it's not normal for this CPU temp to get about 20 degrees hotter than the cores?

 

[buzznut]

No, in my experience the core temp HAS to be higher than the CPU ambient, it doesn't make sense the other way around if you see what I mean. The purpose of the heatspreader is to dissipate heat across a larger surface area than the chip, meaning less heat overall. If your core is maxing out at 60C fully loaded at 4.5Ghz, then I think you have nothing to worry about.
Not sure what cooler you're using, but it appears this 80C temp you are talking about may be an anomaly. Then again, maybe not. But if your CPU reported temp does not exceed, or even get close to what Intel re ommends for that CPU, then you should be ok. I wouldn't run a 4.5Ghz OC 24/7 though unless I was certain I wouldn't damage my shiny new CPU.