CPU never reaches full capacity in any situation, likely due to throttling.
CPU never reaches full capacity in any situation, likely due to throttling.
I own a Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the stock Wraith Prism RGB cooler. Recently, temperatures have risen significantly, reaching up to 95°C (203°F). Meanwhile, benchmarks and everyday tasks show the CPU staying under about 60% load, as reported by Task Manager. I suspect this is due to throttling, so upgrading the cooler might be a good idea. Just wanted to double-check before investing more.
The wraith prism isn't the top choice for cooling, yet it's not terrible either. It offers decent performance for a 3700x setup. Improving it would be beneficial, but you should check your cooling system overall before making changes. It seems your fan placement might be quite bad.
The cooler Master MC500M is a fairly big mid-tower model. I haven’t changed my setup since March 2020, aside from the SSD and monitor, but this kind of temperature issue has only started recently. The UK weather has been unusually warm lately, and I first suspected it was the heat causing the problem. Before that, temperatures never exceeded the high 70s, so now it seems unlikely the heat alone was responsible—or that the cooler itself failed suddenly.
Prime 95 consumes about 35% of its capacity, with very low clock speeds.
It seems the cooling system is definitely not working properly. I’d consider upgrading to a higher-end model like the Scythe Fuma 2 or Deepcool AK620. The Arctic Freezer 34 eSports (Duo) might also work, but it could be enough on its own.