I have built an i7-860 system on a GB-P55-UD5 mobo with GTX-260 graphics board, 2 sticks of Corsair Dominator DDR3 memory and a Freezer 7 CPU cooler in a CM-690 case with a full compliment of case fans. I have heard that Nvidia boards run hot and this one certainly is. I don't know how to measure the temps, but the board and exhaust ports are too hot to touch for long. When running the 860 at 3.36MHz with all 8 cores at 100% plus the GTX-260 GPU at 100%, the GB tuning utility reports a system temp of 39C and CPU temp of 56C. (CPU 1.232 v, memory 1.616 v) I have little experience to compare this to. Is the system self-destructing or is it running within reasonable limits? Dick
That perfectly normal.. My q9550 @4ghz runs 35C idle and around 50C full load with my noctua heatsink and the motherboard never passes 40. This is from 24/7 use. just know that i7's dont have 8 cores its really 4
Those temps are fine. You haven't told us the temperature of your graphics card though, so you're "nvidia boards run hot" comment is irrelevant, we have no idea how hot your card is running. The CPU and chipset temps are fine, at least. Also, Knucklez is right, the i7 is 4 cores with hyperthreading.
Oh, come on, Sam. Be nice. I read one of your comments in another thread where you mentioned that the Nvidia cards run hot and people shouldn't worry about them. So when I had to quickly remove my fingers from the exhaust vent I thought, "Sam was right." Sorry for the irrelevancy. I'll go download the EVGA utilities and check the reported GPU temp. Thanks to both you and Knucklez for your very relevant comments regarding the chipset and CPU temps. Now to go read up on this hyperthreading stuff.... Thanks again. Dick
To be honest, there is no easy way to measure the temperature of a GPU - the temperature of the exhaust slot is nowhere near as high, and the readings via software aren't always correct. Either way, the temperature is no issue if it doesn't cause you any issues. You're looking for anything lower than 90ºC for the GPU temperature to be fine. The voltage regulators are fine up to about 120ºC.
Well, the EVGA software reports a GPU temp of 45C at idle and 60C under load. What I find interesting is their "auto" fan control never moves the fan off 40%. I wonder how hot it has to get for the fan to become involved?? Thanks for the additional info, Sam. Much appreciated. Dick
Sounds fine, though I find 60ºC rather unbelievable, unless of course 40% fan speed is higher than usual (it sounds it).
Beats me, Boss. Believability is above my pay grade. BTW, as a rule of thumb, what should be the upper limit of CPU temps with the 860? At what point should I back off the accelerator or add more fans or drag in the garden hose? Dick
I snuck up on the GPU after it had run at 100% for about eighteen hours and caught it doing 72C. After about five minutes of idling it cooled down to 35C. And the stupid fan never budged off an indicated 40%. Dick
You can try RivaTunner. It will allow you to control the fan speed on your GPU manually. I run my fan on my 9800GTX+ at 100% and compared to the stock speed, it dropped off almost 5 degrees on the temp.
You could also hard wire the fan so it runs 100% all the time...I used to have to do that with the old ATI 1650 cards that came with chipset-sized coolers with fans that didn't even turn on untill 50C, and would overheat before going to 100%...once hard-wired, they never even hit 50c.
I did the same, but wired the fan to 5V instead. For the Asus HD3870 that was actually perfectly sufficient, but I doubt it would work for every card... It's a lot trickier with more modern cards as they have 4-pin PWM fans which voltage-based controllers will have issue with.
Since this system runs 100%/24/7 I'm going to manually (through the EVGA control software) crank up the fan to 70-80% and see if it makes a significant difference in the GPU temps. We shall see. Thanks for the ideas. BTW, the CPU temps are staying below 60C and the board temp below 40C, so the cooling system seems to be doing its job. Dick
