4670K Stress Testing Questions

[Velgus]

Hi, I just have some questions about stress testing my CPU.

 

Currently I have my CPU running a balanced test at 4.6GHz, vCore 1.22 volts on air cooling.

 

I'm curious what would be considered good thermals for this chip on an FPU-only test? I ran it for a couple minutes just to get a rough idea of what temps I would get. The highest TCore reached a peak of 84 degrees, and the TCase reached a peak of 72 degrees. Would these temps be considered normal/good/bad for my setup?

 

Additionally, my 4th core temp seems to average significantly below the other 3, is this normal? On average, its peak temp is about 8 degrees lower than the second lowest (which is usually my second core). If not, would it possibly be due to the application of the thermal paste?

[Fiery]

Haswell runs very hot under heavy load, that's normal.  In case your CPU is overclocked over 4 GHz, and reaches 84 Celsius, that is considered a good result.  Even at stock speed (no overclock) Haswell could heat up to over 95 Celsius under heavy load

 

As for the 4th core temperature: the cores of Haswell are very tiny, so the cores are usually run at the same temperature.  The difference may be caused by Intel DTS (on-die temperature measurement solution) measurement anomalies.  Please note that DTS was originally designed to prevent overheating, and it was only accurate when the CPU got very close to its TJMax limit temperature.  The DTS technology evolved a lot in the past few years, but it may still not be 100% accurate.

 

Regards,

Fiery

[Velgus]

Well that's great to hear, seems I got a decent chip then! I ran that test for about 6 hours and everything was stable, and the temps seemed alright (they actually dropped slightly as the hours went by).

 

And alright, that makes sense.... especially given it actually quite frequently dropped below the temperature of the TCase...

 

Thanks for the info!