High air cooled 8320 Temps?

jjphillips002

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Nov 20, 2013
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Hey, everyone. I have a CM 212 EVO for my 8320. I've got it clocked to 4.0 on stock voltage, NB running at 2600. I idle at about 30c, sometimes 28-30c. I ran Prime95 today after reapplying my thermal paste (arctic silver 5 HD polysynthetic silver) since I had the heat sink off fixing my fans, and I was getting close to 70c after about 20 minutes.

I've read that the 62c mark is pretty high for these FX CPUs, but I thought it was pretty common for CPUs to run high 60s on air cooling under hard loads.

Anyways, ambient temperature is about 23-24c. Here is a pic of my case: http://tinypic.com/r/35an81d/5

I have a little 80mm fan for the lulz pulling a bit of air from the top bays that have holes into the 120mm also pulling air into the fins, with the 2nd one exhausting straight into the exhaust fan. Also, there is an intake on the bottom and another intake on the bottom front. I also changed CM fan cause I read that having 2 exact fans is better than mixing them. The CM fan is on the bottom intaking air.

I think airflow is pretty good, but Idk. What do you guys think? Is 68c pretty high for this 8320 at 4.0 with this EVO cooler? Is it dangerous? Does my airflow seem alright?
 
Solution
Depends on the fans. Those Antec TrueQuiet ones are crap, they may be quiet but they move as much air as an average fart. The Pro series (only ones I can think of with 79CFM) are half-decent, not the best (or quietest) fans on the market but they do a decent job.

With a push-pull 120mm cooler I'd keep them all at maximum RPM with PWM disabled completely, I do so in my machine. I got 2x120mm 1200RPM Scythe GlideStream for case fans with 2x120mm 1000RPM Scythe GlideStreams for my cooler, all running full speed ahead making little noise, my card makes more noise than all 4 of those combined.

You have a lot of positive pressure (3x120mm intake fans) and slow exhaust (1x120mm and 1x80mm exhaust fans) so the hot air stays and circulates within the case, I find that a slight negative pressure is the best for air or the cooler just keeps sucking in it's own hot air.

70C is about the maximum temperature that the CPU should ever get to, I consider anything in the range of 2-3 degrees variation on 55C to be good, anything in the range of 2-3 degrees variation on 62 to be potential dangerous and 65-70 to be critical. Anything over 70 and you should seriously consider what the hell are you doing. My 8320 runs at 52C maximum under full load at 4.72GHz, 1.428V (1.332V with VDroop) using a Scythe Mugen 4 PCGH with stock 800RPM push-pull CPU fans and two 1000RPM case fans in push-pull as well, 26C room temperature regulated by air conditioner.

My old cooler was about on-par with CM 212 EVO (1-2C difference which can be a margin of error) so going by that, it should keep the 8320 at around 45C on stock voltage while running Prime95 (again, constant 26C room temp), assuming your stock voltage is the same as mine (1.3125V) and you applied your thermal paste correctly, otherwise it'll go higher, especially if the stock VID is in the 1.380-1.392V range where mine reached around 56-56C. Do check the thermal paste first, if your temps were lower before by a large margin, that could mean your paste wasn't applied correctly and it only covered a part of the IHS.

As a sidenote, Arctic Silver 5 requires a burn-in period before it starts performing up to it's full potential, but I still don't think those temps should be that high even with just-applied paste.
 


When first installed, I was getting around 55c and 60 after a long load time. I'll do the thermal paste again and take an intake and put it on the side for exhaust too. I think a problem might be that my 212 likes to move around during installation (apparently common), so maybe it's not getting a smooth contact and it's making air in the paste.

EDIT: Cleaned up the cables A LOT, redirected my 212 to exhaust upwards out the top, kept the rear exhaust, put a side intake and raised the lower intake over the hard drive. Temps seem to stay healthy around 62c. I also used the spread method this time for the paste - it actually seems to have helped. That or I got just the right amount on.
 
Hmm, 62C with about 2-4C down after the burn-in period should amount to 58-60C. I still think that's high since CM 212 EVO usually keeps the FX processors at 40-50C on stock voltage, but it may also depend on the VCore since these things vary anywhere from 1.3125-1.3925V when it comes to stock voltage with heat output varying a lot depending on it (up to 20C depending on the cooler and TIM). If you can post the voltage of your CPU (in CPU-Z under "Core Voltage", just make sure to apply load before noting the value, and in CoreTemp under VID) that could give some insight into why this thing runs so hot.

It could also be that the CPU is not measuring the temperatures correctly, AMD CPUs don't have a thermal sensor on the die like Intel and they calculate the temperature with internal logic, which on old Phenoms could be off by as much as 15-20C. I haven't observed the same behavior on the FX-series though, but it doesn't mean that it's not there.

And I still think you should add more exhaust fans rather than adding intake ones, having too much intake will make the hot air stay inside the case instead of being exhausted out of it, raising the temperatures of all components inside instead of making them cooler. Best way is exhausting the same amount of air that is being pulled in, otherwise you can either suffocate components (too much negative can make a vacuum and not give enough air to some components) or you can have hot air circulating inside (too much positive, not enough air is being sucked out).

I usually have a slight negative pressure (exhausting a bit more air than what is being pulled in by fans) since I have mesh everywhere and all components get enough air so my case stays pretty cool on the inside.
 


CPU-Z: 1.216v
CPUID: 1.208-1.216v
CoreTemp: 1.2875v
SpeedFan: 1.21v

I did a quick Prime95 Blend test. Test 2 normally runs my CPU the hottest until Test 8 and then Test 3 and 4 of 8k tests. Temps only went to 56c this time, which is a lil odd considering the room is actually warmer than last time (probably 75F in here). I will say that while actually using this for Battlefield 4 on Ultra during multiplayer, I see sub 45C temps.

Also, changing the side fan to exhaust didn't change my temps much if any at all. I tested it each time after each fan change. Like I said, right now I have the 212 pulling air from the middle of the case and exhausting all of the heat straight out the top vent of the case. The rear fan is an exhaust. side and lower intake so my 120mm are fairly even, and I have a little 80mm in the 5.25 bays pulling juuuuusssttt a tad of cooler air since my card kinda splits my case a bit.

Let me know what you think!
 

Seeing your temps I was expecting these to be at least 0.100V higher. CM 212 EVO can keep an 8-core FX at under 50C at 1.356V, but hitting 60C at under 1.300V means something is very wrong. Having Turbo Core on would make it reach high temps (and having Turbo Core on after setting the CPU to 4GHz manually would actually underclock it to 3.7GHz for most of the time at much higher voltage, around 1.37V if I recall correctly) so if you have TC on, disable it.

75F would be around 24-25C ambient so temps like these shouldn't be happening at all, especially not on voltages that low and I doubt even TC would push those that high, usually you hit those temps when pumping over 1.4V across all 8 cores on a 212. It's not right, but I can figure out what's wrong.

Anyway, first things first, if you have your CPU fan speed controlled by the board's PWM, check if your CPU fan control is set to silent, that makes the fans spin slower than usual and can cause high temps under load. I used x2.50 PWM setting in BIOS (my mobo is GA-970A-UD3, you didn't specify yours) which provided good fan speed under load and quiet operation on idle. If it's set to constant max speed or higher PWM, you can try and re-seat the cooler again, I got a pretty fool-proof way of mounting heatsinks so you can try it this way:

Remove the heatsink from the CPU and clean both the cooler base and the CPU IHS with a lint-free cloth using isopropyl alcohol with over 80%, make them clean so there is no residual thermal paste anywhere on them. Isopropyl alcohol evaporates quickly but I'd still wait 2-3 minutes before continuing.

Then apply thermal paste in an X method, like shown here (Intel chip is in the pic but it makes no difference). Put the heatsink as flat as possible onto the CPU's IHS and after you place it down, twist it 180 degrees clockwise without moving it much off-center, then twist it back, that should make a nice, even spread on the IHS. Make sure not to put too much or too little paste, that can greatly affect temps.

After that, put the cooler's X-bracket on it and tighten the four screws by screwing them in evenly in an X-pattern (one turn on the upper left, one turn on the lower right, one turn on the upper right, one turn on the lower left, rinse and repeat). Always tighten each screw by equal amount of turns to apply even pressure. Then just tighten the center screw before mounting the fans. Make sure the cooler is pressed firmly against the CPU, and do not overtighten the screws or you'll wreck the mobo.

Finally - airflow, mount the cooler so it exhausts through the rear fan. Also disconnect the bottom fan and the one on the side panel, leave the bottom front one and the top front one as intakes, along with rear one as exhaust (you can try and mount a slow fan on the top vent as exhaust as well, just to have even air distribution). The CPU fan must not move more air than the exhaust fans, intake+exhaust must be the fastest (ideally, both intake and exhaust equally fast, moving about 1.5x the air of both CPU and GPU fans combined). Case airflow is as important as anything else, it's not something that can just be neglected.

I also recommend trying a thermal paste that doesn't require burn-in time, something like Arctic Cooling MX-4 or Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 (both cheap and good, I personally prefer MX-4 cause it spreads like a dream), that should show more precise results immediately without waiting for the paste to reach it's full potential. AS 5 is good temperature-wise, but it's a mess to work with, requires time to burn-in, and costs way more than it should.
 


Thanks, man. I'll do all of that later today and get back with you. Also, I'm using the Antec Fans. They move 79CFM so I think they're pretty decent. Have you heard anything bad about them? Lastly, I DO have CnQ on, but TurboCore is off. I'll turn off CnQ too. Fans are plugged into the CHA_FANx ports on the comp, I assume that's still PWM? I don't know, really. I use SpeedFan to control their speed. BIOS is set to FULL ON. I'll check out for some other TIM when I go out today.



Motherboard is the ASRock 990FX Fatal1ty Killer

Again, thanks for your help.

EDIT: I turned Cool n Quiet off, and turned that APM setting off in BIOS. Did the X method like on the Intel chip. Started and hit 36C on just boot up and again 60+ on Prime95. I DEFINITELY think that was too much TIM for at least AC5, so tried again with a little less, same problem. Tried the spread method like last time and still getting 65c on Prime95. The cooler is push-pull exhausting straight into the rear exhaust fan like you said, and the only other intake is the little fan in the 5.25 bay and the front 120mm fan. No side or bottom fans. Couldn't find any MX-4 nearby, but I could pick up some Ceramique 2 at Radio Shack. I was looking for MX-4 and didn't get it when I saw it.

So far, my best temps have been with the spread method and having rear exhaust and and turning the cooler to exhaust air out the top. Kinda getting frustrated since I hear everyone running their FX's with the 212 at much lower temps, lol :/
 
Depends on the fans. Those Antec TrueQuiet ones are crap, they may be quiet but they move as much air as an average fart. The Pro series (only ones I can think of with 79CFM) are half-decent, not the best (or quietest) fans on the market but they do a decent job.

With a push-pull 120mm cooler I'd keep them all at maximum RPM with PWM disabled completely, I do so in my machine. I got 2x120mm 1200RPM Scythe GlideStream for case fans with 2x120mm 1000RPM Scythe GlideStreams for my cooler, all running full speed ahead making little noise, my card makes more noise than all 4 of those combined.

Disabling power saving features like CnQ, C6, etc will actually raise your temperatures in both idle and under load (3-4C in my case), along with upping power consumption through the roof in both scenarios (up to 40W more). The gain with those off is minimal, some ~3% in multi-threaded workloads I believe, even less in single-threaded. I personally keep them all on except Turbo Core.

Are you sure the cooler is sitting correctly on top of the CPU? Is there an even spread on both the heatsink and IHS when you pull the heatsink off? And are you sure you're reading the right temperature in the first place? Try running Prime95, take a screenshot when temps go above 60 and post it, could be that the temps are mixed up and that you're looking at socket temp instead of CPU temp.
 
Solution


The fans I have are the regular clear ones. It actually says 56 CFM on their site, but the case says 79 CFM. It probably means 79 CFM at 2000rpm, which I normally just get 1800. I picked em up at BestBuy for basically 7.50/ea because of Walmart price matches.

Here is a pic of info right after boot after being off for about 10 minutes.
http://tinypic.com/r/29bc2lh/8

Here is a pic of info at 10 minutes in to the Small FFT test @ 8k
http://tinypic.com/r/15mo9r5/8

I look at the CPU on SpeedFan and CPUTIN on HWMonitor.

Turned CnQ back on.

Every time I have removed the heatsink, there has been an even spread. Sometimes, I notice that the middle is kind of bare, but I think it's just because I pull off the heatsink by twisting a bit and then pulling.

I also have some other BIOS settings like Active Core Control and APM and Spread Spectrum that aren't really clearly defined in the BIOS if that matters.

On a side note, the heatsink over what I believe are the VRMs since it's beside the processor gets pretty hot to the touch. Could be that it's so hot that it keeps the air warm in that area, but it's right in the path of the exhaust so it should be getting exhausted.
 
I think you may be right, WerneHR. It seems that when I use AMD overdrive, it gives me a thermal margin, which is the difference between current temp and max temp. CoreTemp tells me Tjmax is 70C and gives me temps that are exact to the package temp in HWMonitor. Those temps added with the thermal margin from AMD gives me 70C.

I do get temps when not on load that are like 12C, 4C and crazy numbers like that, but I read they're not accurate until 40C. I believe the CPUTIN temp is the temp of the socket on the board, in which case, I have been flying in perfect temps all along. I feel so silly now. My MB BIOS even records this CPUTIN as the CPU temp and also the tuning utility it came with. Live and learn I suppose. Thanks a lot for your help!