effects of ambient temp on processor cooling

I

ICE_9

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Messages
3,459
I understand heat is the enemy. However, I am looking to save some power this summer by moving some folding boxes outside to a shed that will be mostly in the shade all day. My question is, since Arizona gets freakishly hot (>110F sometimes), how will the processor cooling be affected? I am hoping to use USB devices or a network boot instead of hard drives to keep the system cooler also.

Is their a factor of how ambient temp effects the CPU core temp? I do not want these cores throttling at all if possible.
 
as ambient temp increases, then the cpu temp will also increase. the case will become hotter, and that will make everything else hotter.
 
I don't plan to OC them much if at all. Was looking more into adaquate cooling on a no A/C budget.
 
Save power and stop folding.

Go outside and don't eat the sunblock you'll get use to it after your first sun burn!
 
Those computers will throttle and perhaps hard lock themselves under 110 external ambient temps. The internal case temp will be worse.

It is unfortunately directly proportional.
 
You can think of heat flow as a liquid where hot flows into cold (there are many things wrong with this analogy, but it will work here). Also, the greater the difference in temperatures, the faster the rate of temperature transfer. Thus with ambient temps of 110°F, your computer will never be cooler than 110°F and temperature difference between your PC components is diminished along with heat transfer efficiency. Bottom line is expect your PC's to run really hot!
 
I've calculated it a few times with my water loop... It seems a 1c temperature difference in the room correlates to a 2c difference in CPU temps.

I quad-load at 50c when my room hits 20c. I quad-load at 60c when it hits 25c.
 
OMG Arizona !!! 110F!!!! in the shade !!!! Quick!! Quick!! run and tell everyone in Arizona without AC their computer is going to explode any minute. What about all those ads with people in bathing suits on the beach or by the pool using laptops, ohhh the Humanity /sob.

It will be fine, of course they will run warmer, just have air moving through the shed and the machines so ambient does not build up. Decent airflow and those machines will not give a damn, internal case ambient typically runs around that anyway and a lot higher on el-crapo machines with just a 80mm fan in front or no fan at all. Just do typical OCing build quality (cut out restrictive fan grills, install case fans everywhere possible yada yada) and maybe put a med sized house fan somewhere in the shed up as high as possible (cut a vent and cover with screen wire if you have to, ideal would be a intake vent near ground level and one up high as an exhaust, automatic foundation vents is another idea.) to blow out accumulated heat. Hell put it on a photo sensor so it runs automatically during the day but not at night.

Intel knows about deserts. I would be more worried about el-cheapo power supply life than the cpus.
 
Ambient temperatures is not directly proportional to the cpu temperature.

Ambient is usually measured as the outside temperature of the case (aka room temperature). Your case determines the efficiency at which it can dissipate the internal heat thats being produced by your components. Even if you have the best air cooling heatsink on the market, if your case does not have good pressure inside, the heat will just sit inside the case.

Just because you raise the outside temperature doesn't mean your CPU temps will automatically go up. Your graphics card could produce a different amount of heat at different times and so can other sources of heat such as a power supply and/or northbridge. Heck every component in your rig can produce a certain amount of heat.

With that said, outside (ambient) temperatures can affect the cpu temps but is not directly proportional.. as in there is no formula for determining how the temperatures will go up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top