There's a few points that need to be clarified in this thread.
Ambient temperature: The International Standard for "normal" room temperature is 22°C or 72°F. Here's the temperature conversions and a short scale:
As ambient temperature increases, thermal headroom and overclocking potential decreases.
"
Idle": There is no software "load" in BIOS. "CPU" temperature in BIOS is the hottest "Core", which is higher than in Windows at
minimum idle, because the processor boots without any power saving features and at higher voltage to ensure that it will initialize under any normal circumstances. "
Idle" is 1% CPU Utilization in Windows Task Manager. Anything more is
NOT "idle" and will
not show
minimum Core temperature.
"
Full Load": As many users don't define "
full load" it could mean
anything. "
Full Load" is a steady-state 100% TDP workload. Games and apps are fluctuating workloads that vary widely according to how they allocate CPU and GPU workloads. CPU “Stress” tests also vary widely and can be characterized into two categories;
stability tests which are
fluctuating workloads, and
thermal tests which are
steady workloads.
Utilities that don't
overload or
underload your processor will give you a valid thermal baseline. Here’s a comparison of utilities grouped as
thermal and
stability tests according to % of TDP, averaged across six processor Generations at stock settings rounded to the nearest 5%:
Although these tests range from
70% to 130% TDP workload, Windows Task Manager interprets every test as
100% CPU Utilization, which is processor resource activity,
not actual workload.
Core temperatures respond directly to Power consumption (Watts), which is driven by workload.
Although most Intel processors "Throttle" at 100°C, the consensus among well informed and highly experienced reviewers, system builders and expert overclockers, is that it's prudent to observe a reasonable thermal margin below Throttle temperature for ultimate stability, performance and longevity. Here's the nominal operating range for Core temperature:
Core temperatures above 85°C are not recommended.
Core temperatures below 80°C are ideal.
Temperature numbers get tossed around forums like gorilla poo in a cage which makes it extremely difficult to make any meaningful apples to apples comparisons, so all you end up with is thermal fruit salad in a blender with gorilla poo dressing. When discussing this topic, it's very important to
be very specific about ambient temperature, as well as defining your "idle and "full load" test conditions.
CT
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