Question i7 14700k Temps too high

[SteveBeast]

i7 14700k
Rtx 4070
Win 11
32 GB RAM
AIO: Kraken X63 280mm
bequiet pure base 500dx case

Hello

I’ve noticed that my CPU temperature averages between 40–55°C when idle. While gaming (e.g., playing COD Black Ops 6), it typically averages around 70°C, but I occasionally see spikes up to 85°C. These spikes aren’t very frequent, but they do happen.

Are these temperatures too high? Could the spikes to 85°C damage my CPU in the long run?

I recently replaced the thermal paste, but the temps haven’t improved much. My cooler is only 3 years old—could it be failing? Or is it time to consider upgrading to a new AIO cooler?

 

[ilukey77]

OK, but that's exactly how my setup is: the pump head is positioned below the top of the radiator, and the tubes are at the bottom. So, what’s the issue?

all good i just mount them the other way around

 

[SteveBeast]

all good i just mount them the other way around

thanks.

I just opened MSI Afterburner and the highest temp it recorded was 95 Degrees Celsius. I cant find when it happened on the curve, I dont know what to do anymore honestly.

 

[Darkbreeze]

flip the rad around to start the pump head shouldnt be higher than where the tubes connect to the rad ..

Thats not going to help with temps but help the AIO as whole last longer !!

Also where is the aio pump fan connector connected to ?

cpu header or aio pump header on your mobo?

The reason i ask is usually the fan headers on most mobos are at the top and top right of the mobo yet i cant see from the pics anything plugged into them !

No. Wrong. The OP has it configured correctly for where the radiator is.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbGomv195sk



Right now I'm not sure what is going on. What kind of profile do you have your radiator and case fans set to? What is the input source set to for each specific fan in the BIOS and also is it a custom curve or a preset?

 

[beyondlogic]

OK, but that's exactly how my setup is: the pump head is positioned below the top of the radiator, and the tubes are at the bottom. So, what’s the issue?

your rigs fine apart from maybe turn the fans the other way around your pulling air threw the radiator personally if you could get the radiator in the top and turn the fans the other way around it be better.

then you can use the front as intake. which will give all the components more colder air

 

[Phaaze88]

Im using nzxt cam with a quiet profile.

Hey, maybe this is it?
I'm not too familiar with CAM and iCUE(I've avoided NZXT and Corsair coolers), but don't those profiles control both fans AND THE PUMP? AIO pumps are already weak as is, so they should be run at max - or very close to it.
You can run the pump separately from the fans and max it out, right?

 

[Darkbreeze]

your rigs fine apart from maybe turn the fans the other way around your pulling air threw the radiator personally if you could get the radiator in the top and turn the fans the other way around it be better.

then you can use the front as intake. which will give all the components more colder air

Actually, aside from the potential for minimally higher graphics card temperatures, front mounted radiator is the MOST efficient for whatever device the cooler is connected to. You can't cool the CPU any better than with front mounted radiator because you're using the coldest air possible. The ONLY issue, and generally it's not an issue, you could encounter, would be the heat from the AIO potentially raising the air temp that your graphics card is trying to cool with and usually that's something that has only a nominal effect. Otherwise, you will not see any improvement on your CPU temps by moving the AIO to the top. None.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Hey, maybe this is it?
I'm not too familiar with CAM and iCUE(I've avoided NZXT and Corsair coolers), but don't those profiles control both fans AND THE PUMP? AIO pumps are already weak as is, so they should be run at max - or very close to it.
You can run the pump separately from the fans and max it out, right?

Right. That was my next thought was maybe this is a situation where they do not have the pump running at full speed like it should be. Fans can be configured correctly but if pump isn't, cooling isn't going to be optimal. I hate CAM which is at least part of why I can't stand NZXT and their products. And I've used plenty of their products.

 

[beyondlogic]

ive only just noticed and had to check but the aio isnt connected to the fan pump header which are at the top so what is it connected to ?

 

[SteveBeast]

@Darkbreeze

Currently, I have my NZXT Cam profile set to Performance, which controls both the RGB and fan settings.

• The radiator (RAD) fans and the two exhaust fans are set to Performance.
• The pump head is running at 100% speed, set to "Liquid" mode, meaning it operates at maximum capacity.
• All the fans are linked to the CPU temperature, following this performance curve:
  • 50% speed until the CPU reaches ~35°C
  • 80% speed at 50°C
  • 100% speed at 60°C

Despite this curve, I’m still experiencing temperature spikes up to 85°C, and the cooling performance isn't noticeably better compared to the Quiet profile.

The main issue is that running the pump head at 100% is noticeably noisy, and the fans in Performance mode add even more noise.

@beyondlogic

What do you mean? The AIO is connected to CPU Fan I think.

 

[beyondlogic]

@Darkbreeze

Currently, I have my NZXT Cam profile set to Performance, which controls both the RGB and fan settings.

• The radiator (RAD) fans and the two exhaust fans are set to Performance.
• The pump head is running at 100% speed, set to "Liquid" mode, meaning it operates at maximum capacity.
• All the fans are linked to the CPU temperature, following this performance curve:
  • 50% speed until the CPU reaches ~35°C
  • 80% speed at 50°C
  • 100% speed at 60°C

Despite this curve, I’m still experiencing temperature spikes up to 85°C, and the cooling performance isn't noticeably better compared to the Quiet profile.

The main issue is that running the pump head at 100% is noticeably noisy, and the fans in Performance mode add even more noise.

@beyondlogic

What do you mean? The AIO is connected to CPU Fan I think.

there are 3 fan headers at the top i believe the 1 in the middle is specificly for the pump check the manual.

 

[SteveBeast]

there are 3 fan headers at the top i believe the 1 in the middle is specificly for the pump check the manual.

yeah its connected to the CPU Fan

 

[geofelt]

@Darkbreeze

Currently, I have my NZXT Cam profile set to Performance, which controls both the RGB and fan settings.

• The radiator (RAD) fans and the two exhaust fans are set to Performance.
• The pump head is running at 100% speed, set to "Liquid" mode, meaning it operates at maximum capacity.
• All the fans are linked to the CPU temperature, following this performance curve:
  • 50% speed until the CPU reaches ~35°C
  • 80% speed at 50°C
  • 100% speed at 60°C

Despite this curve, I’m still experiencing temperature spikes up to 85°C, and the cooling performance isn't noticeably better compared to the Quiet profile.

The main issue is that running the pump head at 100% is noticeably noisy, and the fans in Performance mode add even more noise.

@beyondlogic

What do you mean? The AIO is connected to CPU Fan I think.

I thought your main issue is high cpu temperatures? Which I think are normal and ok.

Any cooler with fans, and that is most of them will run the fans harder, and nosier.
Since the results are similar to the quiet profile, why not revert to the quiet profile?

 

[SteveBeast]

I thought your main issue is high cpu temperatures? Which I think are normal and ok.

Any cooler with fans, and that is most of them will run the fans harder, and nosier.
Since the results are similar to the quiet profile, why not revert to the quiet profile?

The constant revving up of the fans while browsing is incredibly annoying. Even in the quiet profile, the CPU temperature spikes from 34°C to 65°C, causing the fans to kick in frequently. This happens even with light tasks like browsing, which is frustrating.

The main issue seems to be the CPU temperatures. Yesterday, I noticed in MSI Afterburner that the maximum temperature reached was 95°C. I’m not sure when this occurred, but it was recorded in the stats. This makes me think the problem is getting worse.

 

[TerryLaze]

Monitor the power usage, most of the times motherboards regulate the overclock based on temps and as long as your not hitting overtemp they will push as high as possible, so look at power usage, if it is at or even above 253W all of the time while gaming then the system has auto overclocking enabled and you can look into either manually setting the maximum you would like or just turning it off completely. You can use IXTU to set O/C profiles for specific cases if you have things that run faster while overclocked.

In general as others already said, the temps are not too high to worry about, it's the voltage that could cause issues in the future.

 

[SteveBeast]

Monitor the power usage, most of the times motherboards regulate the overclock based on temps and as long as your not hitting overtemp they will push as high as possible, so look at power usage, if it is at or even above 253W all of the time while gaming then the system has auto overclocking enabled and you can look into either manually setting the maximum you would like or just turning it off completely. You can use IXTU to set O/C profiles for specific cases if you have things that run faster while overclocked.

In general as others already said, the temps are not too high to worry about, it's the voltage that could cause issues in the future.

Can i monitor the power usage in HWinfo?

 

[TerryLaze]

Can i monitor the power usage in HWinfo?

If it tells you wattage...
I just use msi afterburner to see it while running games.

 

[Phaaze88]

All the fans are linked to the CPU temperature, following this performance curve:

• 50% speed until the CPU reaches ~35°C
• 80% speed at 50°C
• 100% speed at 60°C

Yeah, that probably isn't helping. It should be a constant 100%.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/aio-pump-constant-speed-or-curve-pwm.3846766/post-23279217

 

[Darkbreeze]

Considering all you've done and tried, the fact that everything seems to pretty much be configured correctly and the fact that your cooler is 3 years old, I'm going to lean towards the loop has bacterial growth inside that is limiting it's ability to cool OR it has lost coolant due to cavitation, which is loss of coolant over time through the lines themselves, and it happens to basically all AIO and open loop coolers.

While your temps are not terrible, the fact that you are hitting temps that high when doing nothing more demanding than gaming, rather than when thermal testing or running stress with a utility intended to achieve a full steady state load, they still seem high to me for what you're actually doing. And while idle temps generally don't matter, especially with an AIO since they DO tend to have higher idle temps, it still seems moderately higher than it ought to be which with an AIO is often due to restrictions inside the loop or loss of coolant. I'd suggest a newer, better cooler. One NOT made by NZXT so you can ditch CAM which is a POS anyhow.

I'm not sure you need a 360mm model, and often they don't do much or any better than a 280mm option, I'd suggest that's totally up to you.

The exception here regarding temps not really feeling normal at that level when just gaming would be if you are playing titles that are known to use a substantial amount of some flavor of AVX instructions. If you discover that the games you're seeing spikes in DO use AVX instructions THEN it's likely your spikes are entirely normal and that if you want you can probably configure an AVX offset in the BIOS to help with that, although again, at 85°C you are still about 15°C below the level of "oh crap".

 

[SteveBeast]

If it tells you wattage...
I just use msi afterburner to see it while running games.

ok thanks im gonna monitor it

Yeah, that probably isn't helping. It should be a constant 100%.
https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/aio-pump-constant-speed-or-curve-pwm.3846766/post-23279217

pump is on 100 % all the time

Considering all you've done and tried, the fact that everything seems to pretty much be configured correctly and the fact that your cooler is 3 years old, I'm going to lean towards the loop has bacterial growth inside that is limiting it's ability to cool OR it has lost coolant due to cavitation, which is loss of coolant over time through the lines themselves, and it happens to basically all AIO and open loop coolers.

While your temps are not terrible, the fact that you are hitting temps that high when doing nothing more demanding than gaming, rather than when thermal testing or running stress with a utility intended to achieve a full steady state load, they still seem high to me for what you're actually doing. And while idle temps generally don't matter, especially with an AIO since they DO tend to have higher idle temps, it still seems moderately higher than it ought to be which with an AIO is often due to restrictions inside the loop or loss of coolant. I'd suggest a newer, better cooler. One NOT made by NZXT so you can ditch CAM which is a POS anyhow.

I'm not sure you need a 360mm model, and often they don't do much or any better than a 280mm option, I'd suggest that's totally up to you.

The exception here regarding temps not really feeling normal at that level when just gaming would be if you are playing titles that are known to use a substantial amount of some flavor of AVX instructions. If you discover that the games you're seeing spikes in DO use AVX instructions THEN it's likely your spikes are entirely normal and that if you want you can probably configure an AVX offset in the BIOS to help with that, although again, at 85°C you are still about 15°C below the level of "oh crap".

ok so would you say its an issue that requires immediate action, or could i maybe wait a little longer until i buy a new AIO? Or are the spikes to 85 Degrees very life limiting for the CPU?
Also could you explain that a bit more: "seeing Spikes in DO use AVX instructions" What does that mean?

And would you say the Arctic Liquid Freezer 3 360 AIO is a good alternative?

 

[Darkbreeze]

I would say, based on what I've already said and what others have also said, that you worry is only that, rather than an actual pressing need.

 

[drjohnnyfever]

Could you undervolt the CPU? There are lots of videos about the 14th Gen CPU's and MOBO's being wide open out of the box. This probably isn't the case with your situation, but check the Bios if this MOBO is more than a year old. I was aware that there was an issue with MOBO's allowing too much voltage, so I overclocked and undervolted my 14600K from the beginning. I had to battle Bios updates that made changes each time to what I had done, but I did the updates in the hopes that Intel would fix it on their own. All of the Bios updates cooled the CPU temps, but they also cut the performance I had achieved with the OC's and undervolting. So, ultimately, while I have the newest Bios, I still followed the early recommendations of the OC'ing and undervolting videos I watched.

With my 14600K, I have p-cores set to 5.5Ghz and the e-cores at 4.6Ghz (I think..) Totally stable with the CPU Lite setting in the Bios set at 9 for the undervolting. The temps get into the low 80'sC doing Cinebench23 but never that high during the gaming my son does. I kept a pretty close eye on temps with the Bios updates. Some of the early ones, and even the second most recent one I did in December, actually increased my temps and cut performance with their new "appropriate" settings.

Idk, I use a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE on the 14600K so I have no guidance on a water cooler, but the temps and performance are great with the changes I made.

 

[SteveBeast]

Could you undervolt the CPU? There are lots of videos about the 14th Gen CPU's and MOBO's being wide open out of the box. This probably isn't the case with your situation, but check the Bios if this MOBO is more than a year old. I was aware that there was an issue with MOBO's allowing too much voltage, so I overclocked and undervolted my 14600K from the beginning. I had to battle Bios updates that made changes each time to what I had done, but I did the updates in the hopes that Intel would fix it on their own. All of the Bios updates cooled the CPU temps, but they also cut the performance I had achieved with the OC's and undervolting. So, ultimately, while I have the newest Bios, I still followed the early recommendations of the OC'ing and undervolting videos I watched.

With my 14600K, I have p-cores set to 5.5Ghz and the e-cores at 4.6Ghz (I think..) Totally stable with the CPU Lite setting in the Bios set at 9 for the undervolting. The temps get into the low 80'sC doing Cinebench23 but never that high during the gaming my son does. I kept a pretty close eye on temps with the Bios updates. Some of the early ones, and even the second most recent one I did in December, actually increased my temps and cut performance with their new "appropriate" settings.

Idk, I use a Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE on the 14600K so I have no guidance on a water cooler, but the temps and performance are great with the changes I made.

Ok are there any good undervolting guides, no idea how it works?

 

[SydneyAngel]

Im late to the party but how is airflow ? I knew this CPU was going to be hot so i put my AIO Rad in tghe front so i could get the cool air in. I have stopped puttingthe rad on top because if the GPU dumps a lot of hot air you are dumping hot air into the rad causing warmer cpu.

 

[SteveBeast]

Im late to the party but how is airflow ? I knew this CPU was going to be hot so i put my AIO Rad in tghe front so i could get the cool air in. I have stopped puttingthe rad on top because if the GPU dumps a lot of hot air you are dumping hot air into the rad causing warmer cpu.

Hey, you can see my setup in the pictures on the first page.

I've opted for the 360 Arctic Freezer 3 to hopefully improve CPU cooling. My only concern is whether I'll be able to fit such a large radiator in the front, given the MSI RTX 4070 and my case, the bequiet Pure Base 500DX. If necessary, I'll mount the radiator on top as a backup plan

 

[drjohnnyfever]

Ok are there any good undervolting guides, no idea how it works?

Honestly, I had no idea either, but when I bought the 14600K it was with the design of learning a little about over-clocking. What I didn't bargain on is the whole heat issue about a year or so ago coming to full bloom after MOBO manufacturers had sent out boards with wide open settings to get the most out of Intel chips... Long story short, I was aware of what was going on so I knew to be cautious when getting it set up.

Here's the link I relied upon the most:
https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/17aogsi/quick_easy_efficient_i5_13600k_overclocking_on/

It's a guy with a 13600K doing the undervolting on an MSI 790-A board. He does it, changes it, does it again, BUT updates what he does and how he got it to the best performance. I was a bit overwhelmed when I started it, but it was a breeze when I got it together.

Getting to know the undervolting.. there were three videos that @vMax provided to me:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mkAVITZoLY

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qS7-goe38Y&t=2092s

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oZ4is-nTi4


These were very helpful. The middle one is helpful for MOBO-type and the other two on where to find Bios settings for CPU-Lite that will accomplish your undervolting.

I used Cinebench23 to benchmark the changes and HWMonitor to have the temps. Only once or twice, briefly, did temps ever get to 99C, but that was actually after Bios updates. I've never been able to explain that. But I just shut it down and reloaded the default Bios settings and started again.

I wound up figuring out after a lot of trial and error with settings in the Bios, that I was best off leaving the Bios in top default performance settings and then going in and doing the undervolting in the way that the Reddit guy did. I set the p-cores and e-cores as he suggested and then reduced the default CPU-Lite setting to - I think 9, but it could have been 11. Suffice it to say, somewhere 11 thru 8 or 7 will probably deliver great performance at lower voltage and temps. I stopped playing with it because voltage was down, temps weren't getting above 85C, and performance for that 14600K chip was at close to peak performance according to what I had read. 5.5Ghz and 4.4Ghz. and a 255xx on Cinebench23. I just stopped at that point.

Here's the link to the thread that helped me with the links I provided above.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...toshop-and-after-effects.3841845/page-2#posts

The last post I made in that thread was an update in October and I had to go in one more time after a December Bios update to do it over again. Worked just the same, but I think the CPU-Lite Mode 5 I stated in that post might have been wrong. You can try to get it down that low if you want and temps will go down little by little as you do it, but you risk instability. My son has had no issues, stuttering, BSOD's, or abrupt shutdowns. Been running great.

I'll try to carve out a minute to confirm the CPU-Lite Mode this weekend, but I think it's 9. That was a number that popped up on a lot of videos and posts I read, so I think it's close to that...

Anyway, good luck. Keep us updated. I'd love to know there's another success story out there. 😉