What are acceptable Intel Core i7 temperatures?

[Puchi Kitsune]

I found the following article informative:
http://www.pugetsystems.com/blog/2009/02/26/intel-core-i7-temperatures/

There has been quite a bit of talk recently about Intel Core i7 CPUs and what temperature they should be running. The Core i7 CPUs have a TDP of 130W, and run quite hot compared to the Core 2 Quad CPUs we’ve used in the past. How hot is too hot? A Google search shows that there is massive confusion and misinformation around the web. In the absense of good information, I decided to find out for myself. As an Intel Premier Provider, I talked to an Intel engineer, and am writing to tell you what I found.

The first thing to note is that you’re going to see a wide variation in temperature from one CPU to the next. It is important to understand how CPUs are made. Intel manufactures a large wafer of semiconductor material, which is then sliced up into pieces to make their CPUs. Due to standard margins of error caused by everything from humidity to gravity, the quality of the material varies over the surface of the wafer. When they build the CPU, they have to test it to see how good the quality is. The impurities and imperfections cause the CPU to run at higher temperatures, so they name the CPU based on its quality. If it tests extremely well, they program it to be a Core i7 965 CPU. If it doesn’t test as well, they program it to be a Core i7 920 CPU. This process is called “binning.” This doesn’t mean that the 920 CPUs are low quality…each CPU is thoroughly tested for the speed at which it will be running. I could even speculate that since we don’t see a supply shortage on 965 CPUs, that they have a surplus and are likely using chips that qualify as 965 to make 940 and 920 CPUs at times.

The point, however, is that each “bin” has some variation to it. If you have a CPU that just barely made the cut to be called a 940, it will run quite hot as a 940. If it just missed the mark to be a 940, they call it a 920 and it will run very cool as a 920. In practice, we see as much as a 10-20C variation in temperature per CPU when cooled with an Intel stock cooler. That’s a big difference! Again, that doesn’t mean that the hotter CPUs will not work just fine, but it does mean that it is very difficult to answer the question: what temperatures are normal?

I would assume the same applies to AMD, since I can't imagine the fundamental manufacturing processes to be different.

the key is to keep your CPU as cool as possible for best performance, but that doesn't mean shell out all those $$$ for liquid cooling. In the end of the day, there needs to be a healthy balance between the money you spend, the satisfaction your recieved.

At least, that's how I see it...

 

[GonzoP]

Of course you're right. It varies from person to person. Most of us i7 owners try and keep loads in the 60'sºC max. But some guys wanna be in the 50's and others can tolerate the 70's. Shoot some guys run their i7's into the 80's but those are few and far between.

 

[86 5.0L]

eh, I've sat at 100*C before so its not really a big deal, 1366 i7s can take the abuse

 

[Zero82z]

Acceptable temperatures are literally anything the CPU will run at. It has built-in thermal protection features that will prevent it from ever reaching a temperature high enough to cause damage.

In practice, the temperature you need to worry about is Tjmax. That is the temperature where the CPU will start to throttle its speed in order to reduce its temperature. Tjmax for i7 CPUs is around 100C. You can find the distance to Tjmax using a program like Real Temp or Core Temp.

In general, a fully-loaded i7 CPU at stock speeds and with the stock cooler should see about 80C at most when under load, which is perfectly fine. My personal rule of thumb is to leave 10C or more to Tjmax just to avoid triggering the throttling with a temperature spike from something, but most people prefer to leave 15-20C or more. In any case, as long as you're seeing below 90C from one of the two programs I mentioned above, you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Nagoshi]

Acceptable temperatures are literally anything the CPU will run at. It has built-in thermal protection features that will prevent it from ever reaching a temperature high enough to cause damage.

In practice, the temperature you need to worry about is Tjmax. That is the temperature where the CPU will start to throttle its speed in order to reduce its temperature. Tjmax for i7 CPUs is around 100C. You can find the distance to Tjmax using a program like Real Temp or Core Temp.

In general, a fully-loaded i7 CPU at stock speeds and with the stock cooler should see about 80C at most when under load, which is perfectly fine. My personal rule of thumb is to leave 10C or more to Tjmax just to avoid triggering the throttling with a temperature spike from something, but most people prefer to leave 15-20C or more. In any case, as long as you're seeing below 90C from one of the two programs I mentioned above, you have nothing to worry about.

The lower temps the better with higher overclocks. Had a friend toast his 920 C0 after a while, CPU was under water, rendering stuff would get the chip in the high 70s, that was at 4GHz. He rendered for many nights long. The chip took a fair amount of abuse before that tho, in the end he had to run at stock to be even prime stable.

Higher temperatures + more vcore + heavy loads = kill a chip.

In the end, keep your 1366 chip under 80c at full load if you are running from stock to something like 3.8 (on a D0), as long as the volts are not abused.

 

[Zero82z]

The lower temps the better with higher overclocks. Had a friend toast his 920 C0 after a while, CPU was under water, rendering stuff would get the chip in the high 70s, that was at 4GHz. He rendered for many nights long. The chip took a fair amount of abuse before that tho, in the end he had to run at stock to be even prime stable.

Higher temperatures + more vcore + heavy loads = kill a chip.

Unless you're running at a Vcore higher than the CPU's maximum, you won't kill a CPU with high heat unless you're very unlucky.