I5 3550 too hot?

[AbueloNemesis]

Hello guys.

Bought an i5 3550 and used the stock heatsink on it but I'm very worried with these results using prime 95:

Also I get around 40º on idle...

Are these temps fine or there is something wrong? What is the average temp on full load for this cpu?

Thanks in advance.

 

[satyamdubey]

yes temps are on the higher side...but see that TjMax? so you are well below that and that is the critical temp you should be worried about. Most people including myself would prefer to see absolute high temps within 75C.

Having said that, what is the highest load real world work that you would regulary perform on your pc.

If it's gaming, then I can tell you that your gaming temps would probably be in the vicinity of 65 C 70 max. That's because a game at full load will not tax the cpu like prime does. So in that sense, your temps might be okay. I suggest, you check your temps while gaming or whatever you would do regulary and if those are within 70-75 mark, then you need not do anything with the HSF.

You may check if all the legs of heatsink have properly seated/clicked into position.
If you've not run this machine for long (which means not beyond a couple of days) and are willing to reseat the HSF then remove the HSF(you may apply fresh thermal compound) and when you click the legs in, do that in a cross pattern. Click any two diagonally opposite legs in first and then the other pair.

good luck
-satyam

 

[AbueloNemesis]

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I'm planning to use it for playing games, tried with some games and got something nearly 73º but still I'm a bit worried, specially with cpu-dependant games. Maybe I did a wrong thing, but I added "a bit" more of thermal compound to the stock one (I thought for some reason it would not be enough) when I was assembling the PC, I seen somewhere that doing that the temp could be increased.... but that much?

I really hate intel clamps but checked the heatsink and seems pretty solid and stable, maybe I need to try to clean it and use a bit less thermal compound this time but I'm not sure... I really prefer not dealing again with that thing.

 

[satyamdubey]

yes adding that extra bit of compound is the wrong thing to do. The stock compound, contrary to popular belief is high quality. The whole notion of wiping it off is wrong and bad advice in most cases.

Remember, it is almost impossible to add too little of thermal compound. I strongly advice you to take the pain of reinstalling the het sink. for thermal compound application refer: http://arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm

does not matter if you do not have arctic silver, just the match the TYPE of thermal grease you have with you to an appropriate arctic silver one and follow the method.

for clicking in the legs follow the cross-pattern thing i described and it will be easire than what you are imagining.

final thing. you learn nothing unless you do something wrong. So relax and have fun doing all this.

good luck
-satyam

 

[lostgamer_03]

I were just like you. I was worried a bit of my temps, because I'd like my CPU to last for a long time. Hot temperatures will decrease the life time of the CPU.

I would recommend you to get something like the Cooler Master Seidon 120M. It's around 50-70$. It's a liquid CPU cooler and it performs very well. It made my max temperature go from 87 celcius to 59 celsius and it is very silent compared to the stock cooler. Idle also went from 42 celsius to 28 celsius. I tried making a little review of it, you should check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOYJoRc1Ci8

If you're scared of water coolers then you could get something like the Hyper 212 Evo by Cooler Master.

At last I would just like to mention that those temperatures are pretty normal for a stock cooler, you shouldn't worry too much. Max temp of the ivy-bridge CPUs are around 105 celsius.

 

[satyamdubey]

^ That is a decent review. He's shown plots for temps and i think there's something about the fan rpm going down to 74% too. you can give the Seidon a try but in my opinion, just reseating the stock Heatsink with a small pea sized amount in the centre should do the trick. you should see the same idle temps (almost, but may be lesser as I do not know bout your ambient) but your load temps will improve surely. below 80C

 

[AbueloNemesis]

Hello again and thanks for the answers.

Finally decided to remove the compound and added way less this time (also used a better one), just following the instructions and secured all the legs with the diagonal method. The result was surprisingly the same, same max temps. Now I'm very confused, I see people claiming getting like 10-15º less than me with the stock sink, but how is that possible? I think the air flow of my case is very decent, with one fan in the back and another one on one of the sides (just where the CPU is).