pds41 said:
I'd keep an eye on the temps, but wouldn't worry too much where you are.
I've recently built an FX-8350, and have been having temperature issues (stock cooler, not OC'd with ambient under 25C), with the core temperatures hitting 68 or 69 degrees under load.
I went to AMD tech support, and they told me to RMA the chip - their advice is 61C is the maximum for the chip. Mine was hitting 68 within about 90 seconds of having load on the CPU; I've just got to find the time to take the machine to bits now!
Hey there! Bleah, that stinks about your CPU...
I just installed the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo... I mean like... I JUST now did it... ...like an hour ago or so... (it was a little harrowing, but maybe it'll go towards overcoming my fear of installing aftermarket, non-thermal pad heatsinks... Ugh, had a few annoying moments... though, everything seems okay..)
...I had to take the entire motherboard out to attach the mounting bracket... ugh... but it's done...
Right now, I'm at about 32C at 23C ambient....
So, I'm at about 3 degrees cooler than I was but I'm keeping an eye on it. According to Arctic Silver's instructions, there's about a 250 hour break-in period until you start to get to optimal cooling temperatures. I did tint the metal cap and heatsink, so maybe it'll be a little faster...
I'll see if I can remember to post back here in a couple of weeks to see if anything's better...
EDIT/UPDATE: I have a feeling that even after the initial period Arctic Silver needs to leech into the tiny nooks and crannies of my heatsink and metal cap, the 3C drop is probably what I'll see in my idle temperatures. Though, I have noticed under the same ambient conditions and under high load that the CPU temperature isn't even breaking 40C (it's been 39C at the most) so, during load I'm about 5-6C lower.
Oh, I should also mention that the stock fan that comes with the Evo (I think it's called an XtraFlo) is leagues quieter than the stock heatsink fan. Even if this is as good as it gets, I'm satisfied with it. Though, I'm also only using the one fan that came with the Evo. I may try a push/pull setup and that might shave of a slight bit of heat... though, from what I've read, the differences between one fan and two on the Evo seem negligible.
...though, I'm beginning to wonder if my slightly above average temperatures are caused by the proximity of my graphics card to the CPU socket. It's hard to say... I suppose I could try moving it to the lower PCIe x16 slot (on the Crosshair V Formula-Z) and see if it makes any difference.