Max temp for i7 920?

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:38 pm

I've been googling, but so far have yet to find what the max temp for the i7 is. I have read that there is a temp where it throttles its clock speed back to keep it from overheating, but everyone i saw who talked about it didnt mention what it actually was.

So at what temp does the i7 start to throttle back?

I don't have an OS installed yet, but sitting in bios i have my 920 clocked at 4ghz (200x20) with a vcore of 1.128. It would boot at 1.118 but not at one step lower than that (1.108) so i stepped it up one more notch to make sure it stays stable. After about an hour, the temp has now stabalized around 84c with only a single 120mm fan running at 600rpm which is blowing at the heatsink from around 4-6 inches away. If i step it up to 1200rpm temp drops to 52c but then its louder than i like. So i need to know how hot is too hot for this processor.

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 12:59 pm

95C/100C maximum depending on stepping. Under 80C is still very safe, any higher than that and you could get in trouble.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:22 pm

Yea its idling in bios at 84c. Granted the fan is only spinning at 600rpm, but when i run it anything over 800rpm its just too loud. I think i'll probably pick up a second 120mm S-Flex and hope the two of them together running at 600-800 will bring idle temps down to around 70c.

Thanks for the magic number. So its 100c huh?

ascl · Post by **ascl** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 4:15 pm

An idle temp of 84 is *way* too hot. Under load that will jump up by 20-30 degrees. Not to mention, you want some head room for warmer weather. Lastly, running the chip near (or at) its thermal cut off point can reduce its life.

Also, just getting to bios does not mean the system is stable. My guess is that to reach some semblance of (ie IntelBurnTest or Prime95) stability you will end up jacking the voltage (and hence the heat) up quite a bit more.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:09 pm

ascl wrote:An idle temp of 84 is *way* too hot. Under load that will jump up by 20-30 degrees. Not to mention, you want some head room for warmer weather. Lastly, running the chip near (or at) its thermal cut off point can reduce its life.

Also, just getting to bios does not mean the system is stable. My guess is that to reach some semblance of (ie IntelBurnTest or Prime95) stability you will end up jacking the voltage (and hence the heat) up quite a bit more.

Well if the throttle temp is 100c, i don't see how 84c is "way too hot". Just because your not comfortable with it doesn't make it fact. Try to stay objective.

I agree though that the temp will jump a good deal once the OS is installed and programs are running. That's why i figure another fan running at a similarly low speed would give me the added cooling i need but keep noise low. Since 2 slow fans are quieter than 1 faster fan.

As for it reducing its lifespan beyond a negligible amount is debatable. I mean if i cut its lifespan in half from 20 years to 10 years does it really matter since I'll likely not be using this PC after 5 years? Its all relative. I've ran many components at temps many people have told me before would reduce their lifetime. In the last 15 years, i have only had 1 thing die prematurely, and that was a HDD that ran 10c above its manufactured thermal limit for more than 8 hours one day when the A/C went out on a hot summer day. Everything else was either defective when i bought it (DOA or died within the first few months of operation) or worked perfectly until i stopped using it.

Manufacturers don't just pull thermal operating limits out of thin air. I trust their rated temps more than your personal feelings.

ascl · Post by **ascl** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 6:25 pm

Regardless of my thoughts on 'too hot' at load, an idle temp of 84 is way too hot. Temps will jump significantly once you put any kind of load on it, and will throttle.

People are overclocking to 4 GHz with some pretty good cooling systems, ie with high speed fans. Overclocking and SPCR do not often go hand in hand, because, with air cooling, its very hard to achieve (if not impossible), since air cooling for this amount of heat load requires fast fans (unless you have an extremely low ambient temp).

Unless you are extremely lucky, it seems very likely you will need to increase your vcore to be stable under load, which will also increase the heat load.

My suggestion is to run at stock, install an OS, run something like prime95 to generate some load and see what temps you are getting. Go from there.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:26 pm

ascl wrote:Regardless of my thoughts on 'too hot' at load, an idle temp of 84 is way too hot. Temps will jump significantly once you put any kind of load on it, and will throttle.

People are overclocking to 4 GHz with some pretty good cooling systems, ie with high speed fans. Overclocking and SPCR do not often go hand in hand, because, with air cooling, its very hard to achieve (if not impossible), since air cooling for this amount of heat load requires fast fans (unless you have an extremely low ambient temp).

Unless you are extremely lucky, it seems very likely you will need to increase your vcore to be stable under load, which will also increase the heat load.

My suggestion is to run at stock, install an OS, run something like prime95 to generate some load and see what temps you are getting. Go from there.

Did you miss the paragraph i wrote where i said i was adding an extra fan? I did already admit the fact that it would be running hotter under load and that it would require more cooling than it has now.

Its my system, its my call what balance of noise/performance i am comfortable with, and i am not going to clock it under 4ghz. Its the number i wanted before i bought the chip, and i feel i got lucky to get one that was able to hit that mark with only a slight vcore bump. I already know i can adequately cool this chip at its current clock rate, since if i increase the fan speed to 1100rpm the idle temp drops to 52c. Even if it increased 30c under load from the idle temp in bios, it would still be well under the 100c limit. So the issue is not CAN i cool it at its current clock rate, its how quiet can i get it while its there.

All i wanted from this thread is the thermal threshold for this chip, not your continued opinions. I'm happy as long as the cpu remains below 100c.

ascl · Post by **ascl** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:28 pm

Definitely your equipment, your call. Was just trying to be helpful, sorry I failed to do that.

Good luck.

LodeHacker · Post by **LodeHacker** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 11:04 pm

ascl wrote:Definitely your equipment, your call. Was just trying to be helpful, sorry I failed to do that.

Good luck.

Look, I am uncomfortable running my CPU at 50C idle, even if it could go up more than 30C before it throttles. So I do all possible to keep it below 50C. I have some gamer friends though, who don't really care about noise, but overclock their CPUs to above 4Ghz. This without water cooling and their load temperatures start to be only 5C or less near throttle. Talk about extreme computing

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 12:06 am

Aris

You might try reading the Intel web site, from which you will find that Intel do not give a thermal threshold for the Core i7 CPU. What they do say is that it varies from chip to chip, there is also a detailed description of what happens when the thermal threshold is reached, and a strong recommendation that systems should be cooled sufficiently so that the thermal threshold is not approached.

So what anyone says about the thermal threshold is inherently a matter of opinion. There are claims on the web of overclocked Core i7 systems running at 100 degrees centigrade on air with extensive CPU/motherboard cooling and well-ventilated cases. There are some opinions that the thermal threshold could be as high as 115 degrees. Is any of this true/valid? Who knows.

So it seems to me that what ascl said was entirely reasonable, and did not deserve the somewhat intemperate response from you. Furthermore this thread is not about your equipment - it is for the information of everyone, and I do not see why a thread about high/maximum Core i7 temperatures should not have some discussion of the merits of it, and the risks involved.

Ender17 · Post by **Ender17** » Sat Jun 27, 2009 7:45 pm

ooh, I thought the only people buying i7 chips were "gamers with too much money"?!?!? LOL

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:07 am

Ender17 wrote:ooh, I thought the only people buying i7 chips were "gamers with too much money"?!?!? LOL

Since 920 prices continue to drop, along with motherboard and memory prices, a Core i7 920 system or upgrade is now quite reasonably priced. And one of the main points of a Core i7 920 is how easy it is to overclock.

You can start off by just turning on Turbo mode. The only overclocks the 920 slightly, or you can really go for it and try 4Ghz or more which is what the OP did. The impact on temperatures is obvious, but what may not be so clear is exactly where all the heat is coming from.

To take a real world example, this is a Core i7 920 system with 6GB DDR3 memory and a GTX 260 graphics card. Hardly a cutting edge gaming system.

With turbo mode on at idle it consumes (at the wall) about 110w, overclocked to 4Ghz this rises to 150w. So far so good.

Now stress the system and a very different picture emerges. With just turbo mode on its 215w at the wall, but overclock to 4Ghz and its 420w. Yes, that's right I did say 420w. And there are plenty of similar figures on the net if you want to look for them.

This behaviour of the Core i7 CPUs is one of the reasons why potential overclockers really do need to invest in 'big' PSUs, and is also why the conventional PSU calculators can be misleading. It also has obvious implications in terms of issues such as the choice of case, and the degree of cooling required by the system.

Ender17 · Post by **Ender17** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 11:15 am

lodestar wrote:
Ender17 wrote:ooh, I thought the only people buying i7 chips were "gamers with too much money"?!?!? LOL
Since 920 prices continue to drop, along with motherboard and memory prices, a Core i7 920 system or upgrade is now quite reasonably priced. And one of the main points of a Core i7 920 is how easy it is to overclock.

You can start off by just turning on Turbo mode. The only overclocks the 920 slightly, or you can really go for it and try 4Ghz or more which is what the OP did. The impact on temperatures is obvious, but what may not be so clear is exactly where all the heat is coming from.

To take a real world example, this is a Core i7 920 system with 6GB DDR3 memory and a GTX 260 graphics card. Hardly a cutting edge gaming system.

With turbo mode on at idle it consumes (at the wall) about 110w, overclocked to 4Ghz this rises to 150w. So far so good.

Now stress the system and a very different picture emerges. With just turbo mode on its 215w at the wall, but overclock to 4Ghz and its 420w. Yes, that's right I did say 420w. And there are plenty of similar figures on the net if you want to look for them.

This behaviour of the Core i7 CPUs is one of the reasons why potential overclockers really do need to invest in 'big' PSUs, and is also why the conventional PSU calculators can be misleading. It also has obvious implications in terms of issues such as the choice of case, and the degree of cooling required by the system.

I posted that because Aris is making an ass of himself in another thread, calling all i7 owners stupid and then in this thread he's asking for help with his i7

viewtopic.php?t=51218

Aris wrote:the real core i7 doesnt get released till next year, on a LGA 1156 socket, codenamed "Havendale". these current ones are just the high end over priced version for people with too much money. So unless your one of those people, wait till fall of next year.

Aris wrote:dont get your panties in a bunch cause your one of "those" people with too much money that i refered to.