What's too hot for a computer?
What's too hot for a computer?
I just bought a Ryzen 9800X3D and put on a thermal right cooler. It was really loud so I tried turning down the fan speeds to quiet it. The speed is between 1100 and 1200 RPM. Now when I play games, my CPU shows around 65 degrees hot. Is that too hot? When it's not using much power, it's around 56 degrees hot. I want to keep the noise level the same, but I'm worried that 65 might be way too hot for the chip?
65 degrees Celsius when you're under load isn't a big deal to worry about. You can try using better thermal paste to keep things cooler, maybe swap out some fans for ones that push more airflow or change the fan inside your case to let more air in. What is the make and model of your computer case? Also tell me what the fans are and how they're pointing around. How hot does it get when you just sit there with no games running?
I also think 65 degrees isn't too hot. My laptop hits between 75 and 80 right now, and when I'm just sitting idle it's around 45. When I open my browser or Discord, it goes up to 55. Here is the temperature reading. There are some settings I can change to lower these numbers, but that might make your computer work slower instead of faster.
No, it's actually pretty cool for this CPU, even though that says high. You can safely let it get up to 95 degrees Celsius without losing any speed, and it will shut down right at 115. That gives you a lot of room to make your fans run slower and stay quiet. Most 120mm or larger fans are much quieter when they spin between 800 and 1000 RPM. I would recommend setting the curve so that full speed is reached only at 80 to 85 degrees Celsius. When it comes to idle temperatures, that mostly depends on how quiet your case is. Anything above 1% or 2% of CPU usage isn't really idle because background programs are still running. It doesn't matter if you have no programs open; the operating system is always active. To get the best temps and performance, it's better to keep background and startup apps very low.
When I'm doing video rendering on my 7950X, it gets up to 89 degrees Celsius for hours (using a Noctual NH-D15). Modern CPUs get hot all the time. My old AMD Phenom II X4 965 stops working way too much above 60C. Even at 65C, your CPU is still 30C below its safety limit. https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Zen/AMD-Ryzen 7 9800X3D.html I let my fans run to the max when needed, but if you don't want loud noises, get a quiet passive cooler like the Noctua NH-P1 instead of active ones. There are no fans, but they are big and heavy compared to regular computer fans.
Hey, do you know where to get info on that? Everyone talks about the 95 degree cutoff for AMD chips, but nobody mentioned that they shut down at 115 degrees.
The 9800X3D gets really hot if you just turn it on without curve optimization. It can get up to 90 degrees when fully loaded, but games run much cooler because they don't actually use all the power and the extra cache helps. Sometimes even in gaming, the temperature stays way below 50 degrees. That's totally fine though; 65 degrees is perfect, and the CPU will still work great at that point (it only slows down when it hits 95 degrees, which you are usually far from). But if a game needs to build complex shaders or if you run heavy video tasks, the temperature might climb all the way up to 95 degrees, causing it to slow down. If your main concern is noise and you don't do any CPU-heavy work, you can leave it running hot and just accept that. You could also tweak the fan curve so the fans only spin when the CPU gets really hot, which stops throttling during demanding tasks (you can find this in the BIOS). Alternatively, use Curve Optimizer to drop down on the temperature significantly. To do this: - Turn on Curve Optimizer. - Make sure all cores are included. - Set it to a negative number and start at 5, then test if it stays stable. - Increase the value by 5s up to about 15. I set mine to negative 15 for every core; this reduces heavy-load temperature by around 10 degrees (though the effect is smaller on light tasks like games but still helps). You can also use Ryzen Master, though I prefer applying my own settings directly from the BIOS instead. Another choice is buying a better cooler. I use an AIO liquid cooler where the radiator fan speeds are set to liquid temperature rather than CPU temperature. This works well because the liquid gets warm very slowly, so even with fast fans, it stays cool. With a 360mm radiator, you don't need the fans spinning at full speed just to keep that liquid temp low.
I have a Lian Li Lancool II tower. Both the fans at the front and the fan at the back are Be Quiet! There are two fans sucking air in from one side and one pushing out the other. It feels like 80 degrees of heat in my room, which is exactly what I want.