3950X - Temperature & Efficiency
3950X - Temperature & Efficiency
Hello, your 3950X with the Kraken X62 is operating within typical ranges. At idle and under load, temperatures usually stay stable around 60°C. With pre-applied thermal paste and the cooling setup you described, a rise of 2-3°C is normal. Reapplying thermal paste isn't necessary unless you notice significant performance drops.
Under load, such as when converting to H265 and down to 720p, CPU usage around 50% is standard. Temperatures reaching about 78°C are also typical during heavy use, especially with the PBO and XMP settings enabled. The fact that no core reaches 4.7 GHz despite these settings suggests the cooling system is functioning adequately. Keep monitoring temperatures and ensure proper airflow.
we reach peak performance around 70°C on average, using Kraken X62 cooling. three wPrime 1024M will likely encounter small FFTs in the 90s
Your current operating temperature is what I'm checking. I was curious if it's safe to reapply thermal paste or if pre-applied paste is sufficient.
They don’t matter much because they change too much, I don’t rely on pre-applied thermal paste—I stick with Arctic Silver 5 all the time.
So... I reapplied the thermalpaste with Grizzly Kryonaut. I ran some transcoding from x264 to x265 using Handbrake and it ran for 1 day 13 hour or so... With CPU Utilization ranging in 50%ish, the CPU Temp is 82 C, it peaked on 93 C. All of the fans are all maxed out. I even change the front glass panel into mesh. The question : is this normal? Or is it hotter than how it is supposed to be? I was wondering if CPU Utilization is on 50% ish and its already that hot, what if it run 100%. Will the PC be toast? Or thermal throttling will just happen? Before I change the thermalpaste I already see the PC restarted on its own twice, I think this is because the thermal exceeded the barrier. I think I already see thermal throttling happens here. When I start the process, room is still with AC back then, I got 4.2 Ghz on all core, now on 82 degrees it is mostly 4 Ghz on all cores. All of this is just using PBO on motherboard not through Ryzen Master and certainly not manual overclocking. I also updated the Aorus Master BIOS to latest ~ F11 and reset the CMOS. For another info: I live in Jakarta, Indonesia. The room in which my PC is located might not have a good airflow (closed room with no AC on). I haven't been in the room since I started that process, so I don't really know how hot it is. After the reapplication of thermalpaste the idle temp is around 48 - 50 C. If by chance I change the X62 with a custom watercooling (Hydro X) and using two rads (360mm and 280mm) what is the probability for one of the core to reach 4.7 Ghz ? I think I will water cool the CPU and the GPU both. Will the temp improve ? Since custom water cooling is very expensive I'm considering the practical benefit first (The PC looking cool is just a bonus).
I didn't adjust the voltage settings. The system ran on auto with PBO enabled via the motherboard, not using Ryzen Master. After updating the BIOS on Aorus Master to F11, at the start of the handbrake process it was consistently 4.2 across all cores. Over time it shifted to approximately 4 GHz to 4.1 GHz on every core.
Consider a -0.05v adjustment (this was essential for the 3900x), it really helped with other Zen 2 processors. The main issue is that the default voltage can be too high, and with 16 cores, removing unnecessary excess keeps things cool while saving power significantly. If you're fortunate, a -0.1v tweak won't noticeably affect performance.
Would using Ryzen Master be appropriate? It seems similar to manually adjusting the motherboard voltage. I’m willing to try your advice. Thanks for your response. Sorry if it seems like a simple question—I’m new to working with unlocked processors and overclocking-friendly boards. I never touched settings before, just wanted to understand the typical temperature range. Also, I’d like to see the advertised 4.7 GHz on one of the cores.
It's similar to adjusting the Vcore voltage to approximately 1.250 Volts.