CPU Temperature Chart

[Knightshade Dragon]

These are the max recommended temperatures for processors.

AMD

AMD Althon, Althon FX, Athlon X2, Opteron, Duron & Sempron Series

Athlon X2
Model    Clock   Max. Temp. (º C)
6400+   3.2 GHz   63
6000+   3.0 GHz   63
5600+   2.8 GHz   70
5400+   2.8 GHz   70
5200+   2.6 GHz   72
4800+   2.5 GHz   72
4800+   2.4 GHz   65
4600+   2.4 GHz   72
4400+   2.3 GHz   72
4000+   2.1 GHz   72
3800+   2 GHz   72
3600+   1.9 GHz   72

Athlon FX Processors
Model    Clock   Max. Temp. (º C)
FX-74   3.0 GHz 56
FX-72   2.8 GHz 63
FX-70   2.6 GHz 63
FX-62   2.8 GHz 63
FX-60   2.6 GHz 65
FX-57   2.8 GHz 65
FX-55   2.6 GHz 65
FX-55   2.6 GHz 63
FX-53   2.4 GHz 70
FX-53   2.4 GHz 70
FX-51   2.2 GHz 70

Athlon
Model    Clock   Max. Temp. (º C)
4000+   2.6 GHz 70
3800+   2.4 GHz 69
3700+   2.4 GHz 70
3500+   2.2 GHz 69
3400+   2.4 GHz 70
3200+   2.2 GHz 70
3000+   2.0 GHz 70
2800+   1.8 GHz 70

Opteron, Duron & Sempron Series
AMD Athlon (socket) upto 1Ghz    90°C
AMD Athlon (slot) all speeds    70°C
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.1Ghz+    95°C
AMD Athlon MP 1.33Ghz+    95°C
AMD Athlon XP 1.33Ghz+    90°C
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred upto 2100+    90°C
AMD Athlon XP T-Bred over 2100+    85°C
AMD Athlon XP Barton    85°C
AMD Duron up to 1Ghz    90°C
AMD Duron 1Ghz+    90°C
AMD Duron Applebred    85°C
AMD Opteron    65 - 71°C
AMD Athlon 64    70°C
AMD Athlon 64 (Socket 939, 1.4 volts)    65°C
AMD Athlon 64 FX    70°C
AMD Athlon 64 X2    71°C
AMD Sempron (T-bred/Barton core)    90°C
AMD Sempron (Paris core)    70°C
AMD Mobile Sempron    95°C

AMD K6 Series
AMD K6/K6-2/K6-III (All except below)    70°C
AMD K6-2/K6-III (model number ending in X)    65°C
AMD K6-2+/K6-III+    85°C



INTEL

Intel Core Quad Series
Q6700   2.66 GHz 71
Q6600   2.4 GHz 62

Intel Core Duo Series
E6850   3.0 GHz 72
E6750   2.66 GHz 72
E6700   2.66 GHz 60
E6600   2.40 GHz 60
E6550   2.33 GHz 72
E6400   2.13 GHz 62
E6300   1.86 GHz 62
E4500  2.20 GHz  74
E4400   2.0 GHz 62
E4300   1.8 GHz 62

Core 2 Extreme Series
QX6850   3.0 GHz   64.5
QX6800   2.93 GHz 64.5
QX7900   2.80 GHz 100
QX7800   2.60 GHz 100
QX6700   2.66 GHz 65

Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
SL7Z4 3.73 GHz 72.8
SL7RT 3.46 GHz 66
SL7NF 3.46 GHz 66
SL7RR 3.40 GHz 66
SL7GD 3.40 GHz 66
SL7CH 3.40 GHz 67

 
Intel Pentium III Series
Pentium III Slot 1 500-866Mhz    80°C
Pentium III Slot and socket 933Mhz    75°C
Pentium III Slot 1 1Ghz    60 - 70°C
Pentium III Slot 1 1.13Ghz    62°C
 
Intel Celeron Series
Intel Celeron 266-433Mhz    85°C
Intel Celeron 466-533Mhz    70°C
Intel Celeron 566-600Mhz (Coppermine)    90°C
Intel Celeron 633-667Mhz    82°C
Intel Celeron 700 - 850Mhz    80°C
Intel Celeron 900Mhz - 1.6Ghz    69 - 70°C
Intel Celeron 1.7Ghz and Higher    67 - 77°C
 
Intel Pentium II
Intel Pentium II (First Generation "Klamath")    72 - 75°C
Intel Pentium II (Second Generation, 266-333Mhz)    65°C
Intel Pentium II (350 - 400Mhz)    75°C
Intel Pentium II (450Mhz)    70°C
 
Intel Pentium 4, Pentium M (notebooks)
Intel Pentium 4    64 - 78°C

Intel Pentium D (dual core)
Intel Pentium M (notebooks)    100°C
Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8Ghz)    63°C
Intel Pentium D 830 & 840 (3.0 - 3.2Ghz)    69.8°C
 
Intel Pentium Pro
Intel Pentium Pro. 256 or 512K L2 Cache    85°C
Intel Pentium Pro. 1MB L2 Cache    80°C

[Destructor]

Definitely very useful for us overclockers (among other things). Nice find!

[Tals]

Although bear in mind these are max temperatures - not the temperature that the processor will operate at. An Althon (XP) tends to crash at around 70-75C mark.

Tals

[Calvin]

Very nice stuff Ron.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Very nice stuff Ron.

Thank ya.

[ANZAC]

Thanx for the info. I just got a new rig with a temperature gage and was wondering what the heat range for my processor. Very timely.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Thanx for the info. I just got a new rig with a temperature gage and was wondering what the heat range for my processor. Very timely.

That is exactly why it is stickied.    Glad you could use it.

[Daehawk]

I was afraid my cpu was running hot till I saw this list. Its at 49c / 120f. The chart says 70c is normal. So neat.

[CeeKay]

It just occurred to me that the temps are in Celsius and not Fahrenheit.   Odd.  Anyways, how do you tell what temperature your CPU is running at?  I can find a temp reading for the GPU but nothing for the CPU.

[Daehawk]

I have an Asus mobo so I use an app called AsusProbe.

But most all mobos list  the cpu temp in the bios.

[EngineNo9]

Most (if not all, perhaps) modern motherboards allow you to monitor the CPU temp in the BIOS and you can also usually download a system utility from the manufacturer to do the same thing from within Windows.  

[Knightshade Dragon]

This is grossly outdated.  I'll try to update it shortly.

[IkeVandergraaf]

How's that coming?

[Daehawk]

RiiiIIiiiiiiise! RISE!

[Knightshade Dragon]

RiiiIIiiiiiiise! RISE!

Mass update.  That work?

[Destructor]

Q6700   2.66 GHz 71
Q6600   2.4 GHz 62

Is that right? The Q6600 that everybody OCs to 3GHz is only rated to 62 C?

[Knightshade Dragon]

Q6700   2.66 GHz 71
Q6600   2.4 GHz 62

Is that right? The Q6600 that everybody OCs to 3GHz is only rated to 62 C?

I'm seeing conflicting reports - I think 62 is the recommended and 100 is the max.  Researching...

[morlac]

where's my E8400 ? 

[Comehere]

Thanks for that! I overclocked the CPU and play world of warcrafts at the same time! I wonder if the PC is overheated so
sometimes it reboots itself.

[TheAtomicKid]

When they updated the Q6600 to the GO stepping, they updated the recommended temp setting.... also remember, that the intel recommended temp is for the sensor in the center of the chip, NOT for the individual core sensors... which will actually go HIGHER than the recommended temp... there's a thermal gradient as you move away from the core, towards the center of the chip (it gets cooler as you move away from the actual heat sources). I won't quote any numbers here because I'm not certain I'm remembering them absolutely correctly, but Realtemp is showing a max of 100c recommended for the actual cores. For what that is worth, since unless something has changed, all temp sensing programs for dual and quad core intel chips, are based on derived data.... in other words, intel hasn't actually released the actual data needed, and they've had to work it out for themselves based on observation.

Atomic

[Turtle]

Anyone have temperatures for the Phenom 2 X4 line?  I've got a 965 Black Edition I just bought, I recently replaced the stock heatsink and fan since the default was running way too loudly and didn't have dynamic fan control.  I've got a new zalman silent HSF that's pretty big.  I've set my motherboard BOIS to use PWN mode and set it to the Silent mode to keep the noise down and it runs pretty quietly.

Right now it's running at about 51c, with a light load consisting of this web browsing and hulu playing a video in the background.  This seems a bit high, is it?  According to the AMD site, the max temp is 62c

I think I skipped a step in cleaning the CPU of the original factory layer of thermal paste, so I think that's one issue.  It's a thick layer of the stuff and I heard you're supposed to have a very thin layer that just fills in the microscopic gaps in the metal.  I'll probably pop off the HSF and use a razor to scrape off all the stuff and reapply a very thin layer of the quality thermal grease that came with the zalman HSF.

[MonkeyFinger]

Yes, a very thin layer is all you need, anything more is counter-productive. And you don't need to cover every square micro-inch, you basically need to cover the actual chip area where it sits inside the shell. Plenty of instructional pages out there for specific cores.

And don't use a blade unless you absolutely have to, use a swab or cotton ball with the highest percentage rubbing alcohol that you can find so you don't scratch it. Make sure you don't touch either side afterwards, a big old greasy fingerprint can cause issues as well. 

[Turtle]

So, clean with cotton swab using rubbing alcohol, hight grade, apply new thermal grease according to proper instructions, and assemble.  Sounds simple enough.

If there's a mushroom cloud wafting up from southern California, that's my computer blowing up.

51C seems to be a fine temperature, but I might as well do things properly just to make sure.  No point in getting a high end heat sink when you don't have attached to the CPU correctly.

Applied it again, and the temperature dropped 5 degrees C under and low to medium load.  Sadly, I think I applied too much grease this time so I'll go back a third time.

[TheAtomicKid]

General advice seems to be to have a couple or three tried and true methods.

1: Place a VERY small blob... think the size of a bb or a very very small ball bearing... of compound in the rough center of your chip. Apply cooler. Pressure will spread blob out radially. If your cooler doesn't latch on very tight... thinking default intel coolers here... put your finger inside a CLEAN ziplock baggie and use it to pre-spread the glop just a little bit, rough circle, center of chip.

2: Place a very small smear of compound, in a line, across where the cores lay inside the heat spreader. I'm fruitlessly hunting a diagram for the phenom2 chips vs their heat spreader... the cores are layed out in a 2x2 rectangular arrangement, but I'm not sure which way they're oriented under the spreader. Apply cooler and allow pressure to spread. Again, if low pressure, you can pre-spread the compound.

DONT use bare fingers to spread the compound. Your skin oil will act as an insulator between the heatspreader and your heatsink.

DO compare your temps vs other peoples results. Preferably apples vs apples.

Personally, I prefer coolers that either bolt down, or can be modded to bolt down, through the mount holes on the motherboard. This allows for much higher pressure, which directly results in better heat transfer to the heatsink. Don't go overboard, you CAN crush a chip, although a good retention mechanism should have a spring loaded setup which allows you to tighten to the perfect pressure.

As a for-instance, I'm using one of these... http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/lgbowiscsp.html and one of these... http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/hodobrforthu.html to mount my thermalright hr-01 plus heatsink atm. I replaced the default retention because it's pretty large, and was interfering around the cpu socket when I tried to rotate my heatsink.

Note1: Most compounds have a lifespan. Especially anything ceramic based. If it's white and kinda chalky, this is what I'm talking about. Keep an eye on your temps... if they start going up, even after you've cleaned the comp out from dust, etc, it's probably time to redo. Typical lifespan is more than a year though. Some never dry out.

Note2: Compound doesn't have to spread out over the entirety of the surface of the chip. Generally, it won't do that anyways. You just need compound between the heat sources.. aka the cores... and the heatsink. Ideally it should spread out, almost to the edges, but in a rough circle.

Note3: On a chip that's properly applied.. when you pull it off again, the compound will be incredibly thin across the surface... you'll be seeing through to the heatspreader, except for small dots where the compound has pooled up occasionally. If you see this, you're doing it correctly. If it's not this thin, you had too much. If your compound doesn't spread out very much, you needed a little more, or needed to pre-spread a little bit, if your mount pressure is lower than optimal.

Too much typing. Anime time

Atomic

In case anyone is curious, my 'passive' cooled Q6600, with the hr01plus cooler, idles at 25c on the sensor, or 32c on the cores. That's with no fan on the heatsink, just case fans. Room temp is 23.8c, and case fans are on lowest settings.

[TheAtomicKid]

Oh yes. A trick.

If your heatsink mounting will allow it, after you get your compound applied, spread, and the heatsink actually mounted... very very VERY gently, wiggle it back and forth a little bit. The movement combined with the pressure from the retention mechanism, will help spread the paste out more evenly. Haven't tried this with low pressure mounts like the default intel system though.

Make sure heatsink remains firmly mounted before firing the computer back up.

Atomic

[Knightshade Dragon]

Oh yes. A trick.

If your heatsink mounting will allow it, after you get your compound applied, spread, and the heatsink actually mounted... very very VERY gently, wiggle it back and forth a little bit. The movement combined with the pressure from the retention mechanism, will help spread the paste out more evenly. Haven't tried this with low pressure mounts like the default intel system though.

Make sure heatsink remains firmly mounted before firing the computer back up.

Atomic

Unless I'm mistaken, there is also a 24 hour 'cure' time for the paste, yea?  I personally use Arctic Silver...

[MonkeyFinger]

Not that I've seen. There is however, a break-in period, but you can use it right away:

it will take a up to 200 hours and several thermal cycles to achieve maximum particle to particle thermal conduction and for the heatsink to CPU interface to reach maximum conductivity. (This period will be longer in a system without a fan on the heatsink or with a low speed fan on the heatsink)

From the Artic Silver instructions I used for my dual core.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_dual_wcap.pdf

[TheAtomicKid]

It's dependant on the paste. Some have no break-in/cure time at all. I know of none that you have to let sit for any length of time before using, however.

Atomic

[Ridah]

I have an Athlon X2 6000+. I just installed a new CPU cooler and I'm using the program Speedfan to monitor temperature. It's giving me a list of readings: Temp 1, Temp 2, Temp 3, HD1, HD0, Core. The Temp1 reading seems to be the one reflected on the minimized tooltray icon which I assume is my CPU, what do the other readings represent?

Temp2 reads at -128C. That makes me nervous...

[Turtle]

Congrats Ridah, you've broken the laws of thermodynamics.

[Daehawk]

I was thinking temp1 was core 1 temp 2 is core 2 and temp 3 is case temp.

where's my E8400 ?

This is mine also. I'd like to know. I'm using a stock cooler now but will soon have a Thermaltake SpinQ VT.

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1148&ID=1904

[CeeKay]

Temp2 reads at -128C. That makes me nervous...

that's -198.4 ºF.  damn dude, I want your cooling solution!

[MonkeyFinger]

I was thinking temp1 was core 1 temp 2 is core 2 and temp 3 is case temp.

where's my E8400 ?

This is mine also. I'd like to know. I'm using a stock cooler now but will soon have a Thermaltake SpinQ VT.

It's all about the motherboard and BIOS and takes a little effort to figure out. Go to their FAQ page here and scroll down to the Which Tempurature is Which section.