... i5-9400f ... EVGA 120 CLC AIO cooler ... Cinebench R20 ... never reaches 50 C ... switched the CLC out with the stock fan. Temps hit 80 - 85 C ... Is this normal? ... Is it possible something isn't reading correctly?
... One core hit 49 C in AIDA64 ... I would say there's a sensor mucked up, but the air cooler ran much higher readings.
Foofah,
Intel's stock coolers are indeed very poor. What you're observing is completely normal and expected.
Intel's specification for Digital Thermal Sensors (DTS or "Core temperature sensors") accuracy is 5°C across the entire operating range. The sensors are typically very reliable.
If CineBench R20 (File > Preferences > Minimum Test Duration) is set for 600 seconds (10 minutes), it'll run uninterrupted at a fairly steady workload close to 100%, which allows thermals to stabilize.
AIDA64 has 4 CPU related stress test selections (CPU, FPU, Cache, RAM) which have
15 possible combinations that yield
15 different Core temperatures, so you need to be very specific concerning which test(s) you actually ran. If it was just the individual CPU test, it's only about 70% workload.
Prime95 v29.8 Small FFT's with
all AVX selection disabled is a true steady-state 100% workload. Prime95
with AVX is a 130% workload.
“Stress” tests vary widely and can be characterized into two categories;
stability tests which are
fluctuating workloads, and
thermal tests which are
steady workloads. Prime95 v29.8 Small FFT's
(AVX disabled) is ideally suited for testing thermal performance, because it conforms to Intel's Datasheets as a
steady 100% workload with
steady Core temperatures. No other non-proprietary utility can so closely replicate Intel's thermal test workload.
Note: Click on the AVX test selections that are
not greyed out so that
all three AVX boxes are checked, as shown above.
Utilities that don't
overload or
underload your processor will give you a valid thermal baseline. Here’s a comparison of utilities grouped as
thermal and
stability tests according to % of TDP, averaged across six processor Generations at stock settings rounded to the nearest 5%:
Although these tests range from
70% to 130% TDP workload, Windows Task Manager interprets every test as
100% CPU Utilization, which is processor resource activity,
not actual workload.
Core temperatures respond directly to power consumption (watts), which is driven by workload. Prime95 v29.8 Small FFT’s
(AVX disabled) provides a
steady 100% workload. If Core temperatures don't exceed
80°C, your CPU should run the most demanding
real-world workloads without overheating.
CT