Question Do I trust the temperature on Afterburner or my Motherboard display

museprime

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Mar 27, 2013
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I have an Asus ROG Crosshair VIII formula that displays the temperature of my CPU. I also using HWmonitor and afterburner. My question is which one is most likely giving the most accurate temperature readings of my CPU and another question is for afterburner which CPU reading do I want?
 

falcon291

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Jul 17, 2019
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Yeah the hardware is readings are different that software reading by like 10 degrees less.
It cannot be... There are a different sensors in a mainboard. The CPU cores each have a sensor, we have mainboard temperature, so PCH temperature and if your mainboard has temperature sensor that you can place anywhere in the case. Also your graphic card has temperature sensors. It is OK that these temperatures can be different, and they are usually so. PCH temperature can be higher than all when idle, but when under stress CPU temperature would be hottest. There isn't anything like software reading. Software just takes values from hardware readings.
 

museprime

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Mar 27, 2013
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It cannot be... There are a different sensors in a mainboard. The CPU cores each have a sensor, we have mainboard temperature, so PCH temperature and if your mainboard has temperature sensor that you can place anywhere in the case. Also your graphic card has temperature sensors. It is OK that these temperatures can be different, and they are usually so. PCH temperature can be higher than all when idle, but when under stress CPU temperature would be hottest. There isn't anything like software reading. Software just takes values from hardware readings.

Sorry I am a bit confused I am looking at both the display on the motherboard and reading that Afterburner is giving and they are not the same. I'm even looking at HWinfo and the information is still different. But you say that's ok. I guess what I'm looking for whats the most accurate read.
 

falcon291

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Jul 17, 2019
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Asus AI Suite should show the right temperature, you can check the temperature there and compare with the value shown by the OLED screen. ROG livedash Utility used to configure the LED screen. Use it.

Other than AI Suite I couldn't find any other application that shows all temperature values mainboard provides. My mainboard is Intel, but I think it is the same for AMD.