CPU/GPU temperatures

A

antipunt1

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2008
Messages
170
Hi Hardforum

So recently I decided to do some FPS checking for games and downloaded a program called CAM. What I didn't expect was finding out that my CPU was running really hot while gaming (above 80 degrees).

I decided to investigate by letting my computer idle for a while. After cooling down, my CPU/GPU temperatures were both stabilized at 50 degrees ('high?' and exactly the same temperature).

Suspicious... LOL. I was originally going to ask for advice on a new cpu/mobo combo that was compatible with the rest of my equipment, but first things first, is something wrong with my case?? :inpain:

PS: Case temperatures aside, my cpu runs at 100% consistently while gaming. This is giving me the impression that it's about time to change the cpu/mobo regardless, since it will become a bottleneck soon given the demands of the latest PC games. Also, in case someone asks me about OC-ing, my answer is that I would prefer not having to resort to overclocking my CPU (and inevitably buying additional equipment for cooling, etc.). It just seems kind of like squeezing the end of a very old bottle of toothpaste (that inevitably needs to be replaced soon anyway).

Game tested to confirm CPU bottleneck: Mafia 3; FPS is low despite having all graphics turned to low settings. CPU Usage at 100%


Thank you!
 
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What case are you running? But generally if the 2 are running the same temp when idle then it could be a function of heat soak inside the case. It might be as simple as adding some extra fans, or maybe cleaning up some cabling and the nasties that accumulate over time with some canned air.
 
A 2500k is no slouch. I doubt your "bottleneck" is as much as you think it is. I'm running a 2400 w/ 980 Ti @ 4K resolution. No issues.

With that being said. What cooler do you have on that Intel processor?
What case do you have?
 
This a link to the case that I've been using

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006I2H0YS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&th=1

The cooler that I use is the stock cooler. I heard from people in this forum that it is terrible, but I'm not fond of the idea of overclocking and buying a whole bunch of custom cooling equipment. I will look into what could possibly be causing Mafia III to run so poorly, but given that it's not the video card, I'm not sure what else it could be besides the CPU.
 
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So you'd rather spend a few hundred dollars to replace the motherboard, CPU and RAM when that's not your problem instead of spending about $50 for a better cooler. No one said anything about overclocking.

Chances are your CPU is getting too hot and throttling down. Check to see how dusty the inside of the case is. Might need some cleaning as rhansen5_99 suggested.

The i5-2500k is literally listed as the minimum required CPU for that game. Game should run fine with it.

What is a "low" FPS? What are you getting when you monitor it?
 
Oh, I didn't know that CPU performance could be affected that drastically by temperature. I assumed you wanted me to resort to overclocking.

I have the patch that allows fps to go up to 60. I included an image to show the readings. The program I use is CAM

Untitled.png
 
It can drastically effect it's performance. By over 75% in most cases. Throttling of the CPU will severely reduce it's clock speed until the temperature goes below the threshold.
I don't see any pictures.
Steam can display games FPS without the need for additional software FYI
 
pick up a 212evo or a reeven justice and a couple more case fans. have a fan blowing in the front one in the side blowing over the gpu and one at the top for exhaust. OC your cpu with the auto-tune in your bios or control software. problems solved! don't be afraid to OC that cpu!
 
Reeven Justice.

Search for the review here.

It is cheap and it rocks
 
The picture thumbnail should have loaded; maybe it was still uploading.

I'll take a look at the CPU fans. I'm still a bit confused if this will really solve my fps problem given that Mafia III lists my CPU as a -minimum- requirement.

~
I appreciate the enthusiasm for getting me to try overclocking. It's just that temperature management and custom fans, etc is new to me, and it sounds like it could get hairy. Do new CPUs still come with crappy stock fans? I'm just trying to get the biggest bang for my buck right now, and although cooling as an option sounds viable, I wonder if it's the best long-term solution.

Thanks everyone for the help thus far, by the way
 
Nevermind, I see the picture now.

Your CPU is being throttled a LOT. Look at the clock speed. It's operating at 2394 Mhz. It's default clock speed is 3.3Ghz with a boost up to 3.7Ghz. It's also running at 95C. The CPU starts throttling at the temp it's running 95C. Clean your PC out.

Additionally, that GPU of yours is only capable of ~40FPS anyway. So you wont ever see 60FPS unless you scale back the graphics a lot.
 
Introduction - Reeven Justice 120mm CPU Air Cooler Review
Reeven JUSTICE CPU cooler, 120mm fan with 6 heatpipes, INTEL/AMD-Newegg.com
Rosewill RABF-131409 - 140mm Computer Case Cooling Fan with LP4 Adapter - Black Frame & Smoke Blades, Sleeve Bearing, Silent-Newegg.com

there ya go. $60 and no more heat probs!

edit: skillz is right about the cpu temp, it is deff throttling! that is also going to slow down you gpu because it has to wait for the cpu. at least clean out your hsf and redo the tim.
regardless, a cooling upgrade should be in your future!
 
He doesn't need anymore case fans. His case comes with a 140mm intake and 120mm exhaust fan. Plenty of room. His issue is most likely due to too much dust or a defective/broken Intel cooler.
 
Thanks everyone. This is definitely very useful information to know.
Perhaps the best solution at the moment is looking into a replacement fan and making sure I get all the dust out after all. This is definitely bad karma for being too lazy with cleaning my case :(
 
Skillz said:
He doesn't need anymore case fans. His case comes with a 140mm intake and 120mm exhaust fan. Plenty of room. His issue is most likely due to too much dust or a defective/broken Intel cooler.
Click to expand...
oops, I missed that it came with fans. didn't read the whole description. still, adding one to the side to blow over the gpu wouldn't hurt...

edit: $50 then! and with the reeven you'll probably be good for a very long time.
 
My i7-920 did and I consider that a good CPU. As for finding a perfectly good processor laying on the floor...then yea, it prolly didn't come with a cooler ;)
 
I'm going to look into the Reeven Justice, and do some much needed spring cleaning with the rest of the case. I'm assuming I'll need some new thermal paste. Should I clean the old paste off, or can I just lather it on...lol

Thanks everyone for the help. I'll update for sure once I give this all a try
 
2500k is not going to cut it for Mafia 3, that game is poorly optimized and requires highly OCed newer CPUs to run properly with 60 fps patch
 
My suggestion is to get a nice low cost cpu cooler like the Cooler Master 212 evo, or a cryorig M9i , so $30 or $20. Install it and see where you are at with the game. From there you can decide if you need something new or maybe you will be happy with the boost you get. If you are wanting to upgrade you can then use this for a new build. But don't forget the latest skylake cpus, are gonna require a new mobo, ddr4 ram and cost a bunch ;)
 
Seconding the recommendation for the CM 212 Evo- it should keep you well below the 95C throttling point.
 
Another thing to make note of is that the stock Intel coolers some with super crappy paste. Same gray crap that is in pretty much ALL OEM systems including laptops. It breaks down after a year or two, starts separating, and then causes overheating because it transfers pretty much 0 heat to the heatsink.

You should hear a Dell tower that has had this happen. The fan spins up to a nice 6k+ rpms and sounds like an extremely loud vacuum cleaner.

Stick your finger in one of those fans and you will have one less finger.

But yeah, even when new, the stock Intel heatsinks are super crappy and are not able to keep temps in check even at stock clocks when the CPU is under a full load.
 
a3venom said:
2500k is not going to cut it for Mafia 3, that game is poorly optimized and requires highly OCed newer CPUs to run properly with 60 fps patch
Click to expand...

That's not entirely true. The game isn't limited by CPU's. It's limited by GPUs.

If a Core i7 5960X @ 4.3Ghz w/ Nvidia 1080 on a 1080P display averages 56 FPS then it's not a limitation on the CPU, but the GPU. His GPU will run that game at ~40 FPS maxed out.
 
Coming from a guy that went from a 212+ to a Noctua NH-U14S, spend the extra few bucks for a wicked bad a** heatsink/fan combo if you can fit it!! Otherwise get their slightly smaller models! :)
 
He doesn't want to overclock. No need to spend money on a "better" cooler than the one suggested to him earlier in the thread. The cheaper option will complete the task just as well as the more expensive models.
 
For the paste my personal preference is arctic MX4 > gelid stuff > arctic silver 5(because it takes bake time and is conductive) > other random stuff like cooler master > random white silicone junk >= stock intel goo ;) For application there are a couple of methods, like smooth it out with a plastic card, then apply the heat sink, or do about a pea sized blob and let the attaching the cooler mush it out. Really the thing that is important is that less is better as long as you get full coverage. Oh and scrape the old junk off the cpu and use some rubbing alcohol to make it nice and clean.
 
Skillz said:
A 2500k is no slouch. I doubt your "bottleneck" is as much as you think it is. I'm running a 2400 w/ 980 Ti @ 4K resolution. No issues.

With that being said. What cooler do you have on that Intel processor?
What case do you have?
Click to expand...

At 4K GPUs become the bottleneck since they cannot keep up with frames.
 
Jay88 said:
At 4K GPUs become the bottleneck since they cannot keep up with frames.
Click to expand...

Well the OP isn't running 4K. This particular game destroys GPUs anyway. Just go look at GPU benchmarks. It takes a Pascal Titan X to reach higher than 60 FPS average. The game isn't limited by CPU at any resolution.
 
That is insanely hot.

The highest I've ever seen is 62c on my rig.

Get a Hyper 212 Evo and some MX4 paste, you'll be good to go.
 
horrorshow said:
That is insanely hot.

The highest I've ever seen is 62c on my rig.

Get a Hyper 212 Evo and some MX4 paste, you'll be good to go.
Click to expand...

Eh.. thermal paste doesn't matter that much, the 212 evo comes with some that's quite good on it's own, no real need to buy something else.
 
Hi guys. Just wanted to update. Thanks for all the help thus far. I want to confirm that installing the fan did lower my cpu temperatures and my cpu's usage was able to go up to full without throttling.

There is an issue, however, which is that despite cooling, performance in the game is still poor. I included a screenshot showing the fps, cpu usage, and temperature. I'll also repost my original image so you can see how things have improved. CPU usage and temperature definitely, but unfortunately, not fps

Do I just have to buy everything from scratch after all?

Untitled.png

Untitled2.png

Note: graphics are turned to lowest settings
 
yes its time to upgrade since youre adamant you don't want to OC. you'll need a new board, chip(i7), ram and maybe a gpu.
watch some yt vids and or google shit, it needs more cpu its maxing out i5s.
 
Well tbh the whole original reason why I was so hesitant to overclock was because I knew over-clocking would require me to learn how to do temperature management, but now that I have this humongous fan installed LOL..

I'll take a look at your advice in your post above on doing overclocking and seeing if that helps
 
Update: I overclocked with EasyTune 6. Pushed it up quite a bit. It actually made a huge difference. Game is playable now :) Thank you guys!

The bottom image is graphic settings turned onto high. top image is graphics at low

overclock.png

overclock2.png

I read some articles and apparently the game is terribly optimized, so the fact that I can play it means that you guys really beefed up my system. Thanks again!
 
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Cool, good to see some gains that helped you out, looks like 11fps improvement which my fuzzy math says like ~20+%, not too bad for the cost of the cooler and some time tweaking ;). Out of curiosity what were you able to get the cpu up to?
 
glad that worked for ya!
looks like it went from 3.4 to 4.2GHz. with better cooling and a manual OC you could probably get it to 4.4-4.5.
also, its time to learn how to OC your gpu...

edit: antipunt, did you get the reeven justice? if so you should be able to get that chip to at least 4.5GHz by manually overclocking. the gigabyte software will make OCing easier but it tends to run the voltage higher that it needs to be for the lower OC clock speeds. might want to check the intel threads or do some googling for OC setting suggestions. i'd put money on it that you could get a few hundred more MHz!
 
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rhansen5_99 said:
Cool, good to see some gains that helped you out, looks like 11fps improvement which my fuzzy math says like ~20+%, not too bad for the cost of the cooler and some time tweaking ;). Out of curiosity what were you able to get the cpu up to?
Click to expand...

Hey! As Pendragon1 said, it went to 4.2 ghz.I included screenshoots above
 
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