[SOLVED] Ryzen 3600x + Noctua NH-U12S... "Sawtooth" temperature pattern at idle?

dinkycar

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May 2, 2020
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Hi guys,

First time PC builder here. I have a Ryzen 3600x system, not overclocked, with a Noctua NH-U12S installed. Installed the aftermarket cooler just because I heard that the stock cooler that comes with the 3600x isn't great and because my case is only a mid tower with two exhaust fans (NZXT H510).

I've noticed something a bit weird with the graph of my CPU temp at idle while monitoring it with MSI Afterburner; that it's got this "Sawtooth appearance".

To demonstrate, I took a screen shot of the MSI Afterburner graph of my CPU temperature at COMPLETE idle, meaning my mouse is stationary at the desktop, and the only active programs seen at Windows bottom right are MSI Afterburner, RTSS, Steam, Nvidia settings, and Windows Security. The numbers are in degrees C. Here it is:

View: https://imgur.com/a/BndVvdt


I decided to also open up MSI afterburner to monitor my temps as I prepare this post (Using Google Chrome, typing, uploading my photos to imgur, etc) and here is the screenshot of my CPU temperature during this "active idle" state:

View: https://imgur.com/a/t5GnjIL


Again, CPU temperatures are in degrees celsius.

Should I be concerned about this "Sawtooth" temperature variation? I'm confident that I had a good amount of thermal paste when applying the aftermarket cooler, and when playing games, my CPU temps are usually in the 50s to mid 60s and have not exceeded 70 degrees C in the 3 weeks that I've had my computer. Additionally I've had good scores when stress testing:

3DMark Timespy stress test results: http://www.3dmark.com/tsst/1059864
Most recent Userbenchmark results: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/27632981

Thanks in advance for the input TH community.
 
Solution
No, you should not. It is normal for that cpu.
One core is working in the background frequently boosting to max frequency to finish those tasks quicker.