How hot should my computer be?

Hardware Cooling
1

I built my PC in February this year and I was wandering how hot it should be during heavy loads and idol.

2

Idle ~30C

Max ~65C

3

I try to keep my CPUs under 50C, and GPUs under 70C. I'm not sure if there's much evidence out there showing a CPU does anything more at a lower temperature, all else held constant.

Typically my desktop machine runs around 32C CPU, 40C GPU.

I'm about to rearrange the cooling in that system to try to lower the max GPU temp since summer is coming.

Back in the mining days my systems were ovens, but I had no thermal failures, so I think attention cooling is something that's great, but a little overhyped.

4

Thanks a ton!

5

Depends on CPU, depends on cooling solution, depends on ambient temperature, depends on time of year.

6

It makes no difference to direct performance at all. Obviously, it may allow higher overclocks etc.

7

I was going to ask what your specs were... since that makes a difference, esp. what cooler you are using. Like the expected temps of a OCed 4790K on stock cooler is different from the same chip on a H100.

8

This is important. Let's say you've got an i7 and a HD 7970 or something, for both the CPU and GPU you can be all the way up in the 80C no problem but any higher is too close to the thermal limit. Ideally you'd want to be lower then that (in the 60C to 70C area is fine even), but it depends on your configuration including your overclock and whatnot too.