Question NZXT vs HWInfo

The_Barronator

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May 1, 2021
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Hi everyone,

I have a new PC and it has an NZXT liquid cooler on it. I booted up HW Info 64 to compare temps while maxing out Cyberpunk 2077....and HWInfo reports some very concerning and wild temps, like we're talking spikes up to 99 degrees.... that seem to deviate very rapidly, while the NZXT cooler reports solid, stable and low temps.

So.......who do I believe here? What's happening here? Is the CPU die itself reaching a high temp right before the liquid cools it? Should I be worried or does having a liquid cooler simply screw up the readings you get from hardware monitoring software?
 
@The_Barronator

What CPU do you have? I tested NZXT software a while ago on an Intel CPU and the temperature data it was reporting was not even close to accurate. The core temperature of Intel CPUs can change instantly. NZXT was not showing these changes at all. No idea why it was so bad. I thought they fixed this issue but maybe not.

If you have an Intel CPU and HWiNFO is showing core temp spikes to 99°C then those temps are definitely real. Post a screenshot. Sounds like your cooler might be dead.
 

The_Barronator

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May 1, 2021
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I have the new Intel 13th gen i9 13900. Definitely using the latest hwinfo, also tried on CPUID Hardware Monitor and saw the same thing. I am not sure it is actually throttling or that hw info is correct. Let's say hw info says the CPU is 85 degrees....and the NZXT cooler says its 55 degrees. As soon as I turn the game off, hwinfo temps change almost instantly to 55 and go down VERY rapidly. Not to mention the temps are all over the place on hw info.....says 77...then 99...then 85....then 70....while the cooler is like "yeah....just chillin at 55 degrees". I'm not sure the cooler is dead, all fans work and it behaves like you would expect it to with temps that rise into the 50s under heavy load and chilling at 30 degrees on idle.
 
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just chillin at 55 degrees
You are in denial.

Intel positions the core temperature sensors on the hottest parts of the core. Core temperatures can and do change instantaneously. Not sure what sensors NZXT is monitoring. Maybe it is reporting the water temperature. Whatever temperature MZXT is reporting is useless information. The peak core temperature is the only thing that is important. This is what controls thermal throttling.

Intel has been using the same method and same CPU register to store temperature data since Core i was first released in 2008. HWiNFO has no problem accurately reading this information from any Core i CPU. You can trust what HWiNFO is telling you. If it shows you that the cores are reaching 99°C then they are reaching 99°C. This temperature is what triggers thermal throttling.

with temps that rise into the 50s under heavy load
13900 CPUs do not have temperatures that rise gracefully. These CPUs are ovens even with the best cooling.
 
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The_Barronator

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Just an update, it seems with HWInfo at least, that the core temperature is in line or close to what the cooler says. However it does say that it has spiked into the high 80s low 90s with cyberpunk for like...literally a split second. Then it's back to the temp the cooler is reporting.

CPU Package temp shows higher than core though, which is interesting.
 
the temp the cooler is reporting
Not sure why you are still looking at that information. There are going to be times when the NZXT software is reporting a low ball number that is not even close to the actual peak CPU core temperature. A low number might make you feel good but it is not the true temperature of your CPU so why bother?

CPU Package temp shows higher than core though
How much higher? A degree or two? When the package temperature is less than the peak core temperature, this is usually just a monitoring error. With temperatures changing instantaneously, it is possible for HWiNFO to sample the CPU package temperature at a slightly different time than it samples the individual core temperatures. There is no easy way to sample all of these sensors, all at the exact same time.

The package temperature data is not coming from a separate temperature sensor. The CPU takes data from all of the individual core temperature sensors, the iGPU if you have one, the system agent, etc., compares all of their temperatures and reports the highest value it finds as the package temperature. Intel did this to make life simple. Instead of monitoring software having to constantly interrupt each individual core to monitor its temperature, it is much easier to just monitor one single temperature value which Intel calls the package temperature. No need to wake cores up out of a low power C state. The package temperature is handled internally by the CPU.
 
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The_Barronator

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May 1, 2021
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uWebb the CPU package temp is weird... it is vastly different it'll be like 83 while the core temp is 55. This is what I mean......but upon further investigation, the core temp 99% of the time seems to be what the cooler says, but it's the spikes I am concerned about. Playing Cyberpunk it spiked to 93 for a split second then immediately went down to 55. Like we are talking not even a millisecond and it was instantly corrected..... Maybe I am in denial LOL but it does seem the cooler is reporting mostly an accurate temp but it can't account for the spikes. Are spikes like that normal? I have been reading on an i9 13th gen they might be, apparently runs hot in general.

I dunno, this is a 4090 i9 build i dropped a ton of cash on. 64 gigs of DDR5 RAM, rog strix motherboard, it's a supercomputer. But I notice cpu spikes like I said, and I am worried, even though they are remedied immediately, that they are a bad thing.
 
but it can't account for the spikes.
If your NZXT software is not reporting the spikes then it is not accurately reporting the CPU temperature.

13th Gen i9 can run incredibly hot even with the best cooling. When a load is moved around from core to core, temperatures will spike. This is normal.

Any temperature under 100°C is a safe operating temperature according to Intel. That is why Intel sets the thermal throttling temperature to 100°C. If this was not safe, Intel would have lowered this spec many years ago.

Use HWiNFO to monitor your CPU speed and to monitor for any thermal throttling.

Edit - Can you post a screenshot of HWiNFO that shows the bizarre temperatures that you are seeing?
 
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