[SOLVED] Worried about the temperature of 8700K!

[Tito77]

Hi Folks,

So, I have a 3+ yrs old system with an i7-8700K (non-delided) running at stock speeds with CoolerMaster Hyper 212 LED Turbo (Black).
And I recently decided to clean out the old thermal paste that came with the cooler & used Arctic MX4 to reapply.

After I decided to run some CPU intensive benchmarks like Prime95/ Aida64 Extreme/ Intel XTU/ Cinebench R20, I am getting uncomfortably high temperatures (~80C to 90C). I am listing out the temps for each benchmark below.

• Prime95: ~80C to 85C with Non-AVX tests || Jumps up to ~95C with AVX stress
• Intel XTU: ~75C to 83C with normal stress test || max ~93-94C with AVX stress
• Cinebench R20: ~86C with multi core run || ~55C-60C with single core run
• Aida64 Extreme: Temps reached 88C during benchmark & the program showed "CPU Throttling - Overheating detected" warning.

Also I ran Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark which is a bit cpu heavy & the max CPU temp went up to 86C as well.

Are these temps okay at all for the my cooler at stock speed? If I recall correctly, the max temps for my CPU used to be around 77C to 82C when I got the system almost 3 yrs ago. And I have tried with multiple thermal paste applications (Noctua NT-H2/ Arctic MX4/ CoolerMaster) & each time I get almost similar temps (just ~2-3C differences).

Also, can you folks suggest some better air coolers with a max height of 160mm as my case (CoolerMaster MB500) only supports up to that height? I am kinda paranoid to get an AIO loop due to fear of leaking!
I had a new air cooler in mind: MasterAir MA612 Stealth | Cooler Master but I cannot find any TDP ratings about this cooler anywhere.

System Specs

• Intel i7-8700K (non-delided) at stock speeds
• MSI Z370-A Pro motherboard
• 32GB G-Skill (16x2)TridentZ RGB memory
• MSI RTX 2070 Super Gaming X Trio
• WD Black 500GB SSD
• Cooler Master MB500 case

 

[Supernova1138]

Check what your core voltage is, you may have some room to undervolt to improve temps without getting a new cooler as most motherboards tend to put more voltage than needed in at Auto settings to ensure stability. You may also need to check it's actually running at stock speeds and isn't using some sort of auto-overclock like Multicore Enhancement. My 8700k runs quite toasty too with temps in between 80 and 90 under heavy loads, always has and that's with a large air cooler, a Deepcool Assassin II. I'm overclocked but my voltage is on the lower side running at about 1.31V. I think the problem is that thermal paste between the heatspreader and the die, it just doesn't transfer the heat well. I've never bothered delidding my chip but at least in my situation I think that might be the only thing that would massively improve temps. As for you, a better cooler might help a bit, though like I said before if you're not overclocking try an undervolt first and see what results you get, at stock you probably don't need more than 1.2V for stability unless you have a very bad chip.

 

[Tito77]

Check what your core voltage is, you may have some room to undervolt to improve temps without getting a new cooler as most motherboards tend to put more voltage than needed in at Auto settings to ensure stability. You may also need to check it's actually running at stock speeds and isn't using some sort of auto-overclock like Multicore Enhancement. My 8700k runs quite toasty too with temps in between 80 and 90 under heavy loads, always has and that's with a large air cooler, a Deepcool Assassin II. I'm overclocked but my voltage is on the lower side running at about 1.31V. I think the problem is that thermal paste between the heatspreader and the die, it just doesn't transfer the heat well. I've never bothered delidding my chip but at least in my situation I think that might be the only thing that would massively improve temps. As for you, a better cooler might help a bit, though like I said before if you're not overclocking try an undervolt first and see what results you get, at stock you probably don't need more than 1.2V for stability unless you have a very bad chip.

Thank you for your reply. I want to try undervolting my CPU as you suggested but I have no idea how to proceed. Can you suggest what options I need to enable/ disable on MSI motherboard for undervolting?

 

[SkyNetRising]

So, I have a 3+ yrs old system with an i7-8700K (non-delided) running at stock speeds with CoolerMaster Hyper 212 LED Turbo (Black).

Hyper 212 is too weak for 8700k. Get a better cooler.

Also, can you folks suggest some better air coolers with a max height of 160mm as my case (CoolerMaster MB500) only supports up to that height?

Cryorig H5.

 

[Tito77]

Hyper 212 is too weak for 8700k. Get a better cooler.


Cryorig H5.

Unfortunately Cyrorig H5 is currently out of stock in my area.

Can you suggest any other compatible coolers? How about MasterAir MA612 Stealth or an NZXT Kraken M22 if I have to go liquid cooling way?

 

[faalin]

I use a Cryorig R1 Ultimate on my 8700k, but mine is delided with a solid copper IHS running at 5.1Ghz 24/7. I hit low 80's on Cinebench R20 with no AVX offset.

 

[Tito77]

Check what your core voltage is, you may have some room to undervolt to improve temps without getting a new cooler as most motherboards tend to put more voltage than needed in at Auto settings to ensure stability. You may also need to check it's actually running at stock speeds and isn't using some sort of auto-overclock like Multicore Enhancement. My 8700k runs quite toasty too with temps in between 80 and 90 under heavy loads, always has and that's with a large air cooler, a Deepcool Assassin II. I'm overclocked but my voltage is on the lower side running at about 1.31V. I think the problem is that thermal paste between the heatspreader and the die, it just doesn't transfer the heat well. I've never bothered delidding my chip but at least in my situation I think that might be the only thing that would massively improve temps. As for you, a better cooler might help a bit, though like I said before if you're not overclocking try an undervolt first and see what results you get, at stock you probably don't need more than 1.2V for stability unless you have a very bad chip.

Btw, I did some investigating while running benchmarks & you were right! HWMonitor showed 1.3+v for every single core on stock speeds. A couple cores even hit a 1.38v max! :O
I am currently trying to undervolt it & watching some guides.

 

[Supernova1138]

Btw, I did some investigating while running benchmarks & you were right! HWMonitor showed 1.3+v for every single core on stock speeds. A couple cores even hit a 1.38v max! :O
I am currently trying to undervolt it & watching some guides.

Make sure you're checking Vcore and not VID. VID is the amount of voltage a CPU requests, not what it actually gets, Vcore is the actual voltage. Still requesting 1.38 at stock speeds is high and you can probably get away with a lower voltage if you don't intend on overclocking.

 

[Tito77]

Make sure you're checking Vcore and not VID. VID is the amount of voltage a CPU requests, not what it actually gets, Vcore is the actual voltage. Still requesting 1.38 at stock speeds is high and you can probably get away with a lower voltage if you don't intend on overclocking.

Oh, thanks for the information, I was actually looking at the VIDs in HWMonitor, & I applied negative offset in SBIOS, I was able to get upto - 0.085v offset, from - 0.090v offset values onwards, my system started freezing.
So, just the offset is fine? or should I lock the CPU core voltage at 1.2v in SBIOS?

 

[Supernova1138]

Probably stick with the 0.085 negative offset. Locking to a specific voltage often isn't useful as it means it will run that voltage constantly, even at idle increasing power consumption.

 

[Tito77]

Probably stick with the 0.085 negative offset. Locking to a specific voltage often isn't useful as it means it will run that voltage constantly, even at idle increasing power consumption.

Alright, thank you once again for helping!