CPU Temps, 6850K & Thermalright AXP 100RH

Hi everyone,

I've recently built a new rig based on ROG Rampage V Edition 10 MB, 6850K CPU and 32GB Corsair Vengeance RAM (3200 MHz). Following all these reported problems with accidental drops/damage of components with the liquid CPU coolers plus pump noise even at idle, I went for air cooling and Thermalright AXP 100RH. Why, it was small enough to not obstruct any RAM slots, weighed very little, matched my rig color, and last but not least took very little space.

My CPU is not directly overclocked and I doubt it will be in near future. I only currently use the XMP profile for the RAM running at 3.2 GHz on the motherboard.

What concerns me and would like to confirm with you is the CPU temperatures. CPU core temperatures most of the time stay at around 46/47 degrees Celsius but the CPU package temperature at around idle (like doing simple tasks like browsing) is around 59-61 degrees Celsius. CPU fan is in PWM mode, the rig has been built into a Corsair 650D with plenty of ventilation (a Spectre 20 cm. intake fan, the stock Corsair 20 cm. top exhaust fan and a 12 cm. (if not wrong) stock Corsair back fan). Very good cable management and plenty of space between all components inside. GPU at the moment is GTX 560Ti - to be changed to 1080 or 1080Ti soon with Corsair 1200W PSU.

Under full load, so far I've only did an Aida64 CPU test at 100% for about 10 minutes and reached 75 degrees Celsius max as CPU package temperature. Yesterday I completely took the cooler out, re-applied CPU compound (Gelid Solutions Extreme) - thinking it was from the CPU compound application - and tried again - similar results.

If the RAM runs at the BIOS's stock 2133 Mhz, CPU temperatures go down by about 10 degrees. Apart from the XMP profile, most other CPU BIOS values are at AUTO, only hyperthreading, Intel virtualisation technology and "sync all cores" options are enabled.

Can anyone tell me if these temps are OK? I know the cooler is not great (it's also quite expensive compared to bigger ones that cost less) but I would not eventually want to change it. Eventually I can buy a bigger fan but again it will block the first RAM slots.

Any X99 CPU users with similar CPUs and smaller low-profile air coolers? Another note, if I rush the above-mentioned case fans to their maximum, the CPU package temperature hardly changes so it's the cooler. Also, I turned the cooler fan upside down to blow air out, instead of in, but results were similar and a little bit worse.

Thanks everyone.

Considering those idle temps which I consider a bit warm for my likes but are OK, load temps on Aida64 are great, specially with that cooler which is designed for SFF environment.

First of all, be absolutely sure your CPU is not overclocked, some XMP profiles tend to apply certain levels of overclock, also certain motherboards utilize some features that override the stock intel Turbo boost levels and apply max turbo boost to ALL cores under load which certainly have an impact on temps, in asus that feature is named "Asus MultiCore Enhancement" on AUTO it will sync all cores to max turbo if it consider that the CPU is cool enough and between TDP levels, it have ON to force this feature always, and OFF to disable it of course.

The increased temps with faster RAM could be couple of things the first one the CPU is getting a minor overclock and also the memory controller is inside the CPU die so this add overall temperature to the CPU package, nothing to worry.

Idle temps will depend on windows power plan and how the Bios have the CPU C states configured. as it may not be downclocking and downvolting on idle conditions, worth to check.

Thank you for your suggestions. Yes I believe Asus MultiCore Enhancement is on Auto but I will check the BIOS more comprehensively when I have more time.

I've been monitoring temps the whole day both with Aida and HWiNFO and most of the time CPU core clock stays at 1.2GHz (i.e. below 2 GHz) with max CPU/Thread usage below 6-7%. I have an M.2 drive which is almost permanently the hottest case component at 40-41 degrees apart from the CPU. Motherboard temperature is almost at all times 30-31 degrees. Another thing I noticed is that Aida for some reason always reports CPU package temperatures that are 4-5 degrees Celsius higher than what Corsair Link or Asus Extreme Utility report. Per-core temps are the same with all.

I will tweak the BIOS settings then go into Windows and do some testing/further monitoring. Thermalright's CPU fan is quite quiet even at full load and doesn't have any whine/mechanical noise as many others. If I decide to change the cooler, can you recommend another air cooler that's not too big but keeps temperatures much lower at idle, or alternatively a better fan? I've been looking for a fan online but just couldn't find similar size one (especially black/white-red and not the ugly Noctua brown) that comes even close to this one in terms of air being pushed in. Thermalright did an amazing job with it in terms of appearance and the fan itself. Unfortunately, however judging on my own experience I doubt if this cooler could properly cool even much less powerful CPUs, especially in tight cases with no circulation. Yes, it does its job pretty well when fan is at 100% but kills its purpose when CPU is idle.

well if you want to stay with Thermalright, TRUE Spirit 140 Power will do a great Job, or any other of the TRUE Spirit 140 Variant all of those have a pretty small Footprint and doesn't block RAM or PCI-E Slots even with huge fans. I personally run a Vanilla TRUE Spirit 140 with a single STOCK fan full blast 24/7 that thing is god damn quiet at just 1250RPM and do fantastic job even compared to other couple of AIO Liquid coolers I've used in this machine in the past..

Good to know. I spent on the current cooler as much as the True Spirit price already so I will try making it work for my needs before going for another one. I contacted Thermalright asking about what I'm observing plus fan change questions. Let's see how those glittering customer commitment promises on their website look like for real in the after-sales field.

Considering some alternative fans amongst which some Be Quiet 120 mm, Thermalright 120/140 and more I'm still exploring.

My first cooler to consider before even going for choosing the parts for the rig was Deepcool Assassin II (at 70% of the AXP 100RH price) so depending on the developments I may still go for it, love these red fans.

Paraiso,

Lets compare notes. I also have a 6850K running at 4.0 ghz under a CNPS9900 Zalman cooler. Cpu vcore at 1.18 and running my ram at 2666 mhz for now.
My Prime95 load temps (v26.6 - Non AVX) is at 56 max with maybe 54 average. Idles at 28 degrees. Ambient temp is kind of cold however.

What do you have?

Thanks