I7-870 running hot with stock cooler

npowers86

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Feb 1, 2011
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i have an i7-870 with the stock intel cooler. i am looking into ordering a nice aftermarket cooler so i can overclock and keep the heat down but am waiting a few weeks for the funds
my cpu runs at about 35-45 idle and under normal load about 50-70, and then in games goes up from there. is it safe to use this for a few weeks with the stock cooler? i wont overclock until i get a new cooler and wont do much gaming

i am using an haf-x case so i have lots of airflow. thanks
 
It is worrying to go over 70°C under gaming load (would be acceptable running stress test with prime95). With the Haf X it should be cooler so either it is broken or the cooler is not seated properly! (unless you live with an extreme ambient temp)
 

jb6684

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What are your temps in Prime95? The CPU will run up to 100C then shut down. I wouldn't want to run about 80C even under Prime95. If your running way about 80C in Prime95, check the seating of each of the four push pins on the stock heat sink. And look for any light showing between the CPU & CPU cooler base.

I have an i7-860 and found the stock cooler just wouldn't cut it. If you need to lower temps till you save up some cash for an aftermarket cooler, go into the BIOS and disable HyperThreading. This will limit the system to running on 4 cores and not it's full 4 cores + 4 threads. Temps will be much lower. About 10--15C if I recall.