10 degree differance in cores

so i just installed an x9100 in my 7811fx. everything is looking good, but the temps on the cpu are about ten degrees different from each other. Is this a problem? and how would i fix it? I suppose it could just be that the thermal paste is not evenly applied...

other than that though, the temps seems quite good. one of the cores idles below 20...which actually seems a little odd.....

anyways, after a few minutes of gaming, temps got up to 55. Is that okay?

Thanks

 

Yeah thats sounds ok. Intel temp sensors are a little weird at times. at idle sometimes for me core0 is at 20c and core1 35c. 55c when gaming is about what my x9000 does at 3.0 GHz.

 

The core temperature sensors used by Intel were never designed to be used for accurate temperature monitoring, especially when at idle. Sometimes you get lucky and get a CPU with sensors that are reasonably accurate and sometimes you don't. Intel only designed and calibrated these sensors for thermal throttle and thermal shutdown control and for those tasks, the majority of them work great. Just ignore any temp differences.

 

and just a general temp question: if I keep my cpu under 70, will that be fine? or is above 60 pushing it?

 

I you keep your cpu under 90c you should be fine.

 

Here's my favorite CPU heat test. I loaded up my desktop E8400, cranked up the voltage, over clocked it 20%, disconnected the fan and ran Prime95 Small FFTs so I could create plenty of heat.

How long did it take to go ka-boom? After 3 hours of testing, I got bored and stopped it. It bounced off the Intel thermal throttle for 3 hours and continued to run 100% reliably without a single error in Prime95.



My conclusion after this test is that people worry too much about their core temperature when they really don't need to. As long as your CPU is stable then don't worry about what temperature it's running at. It's just a number and often times, it's not even a 100% accurate number.