Is my core temperature suitable for OC? Also is my Heatsink fan in the right position

[Deleted]

Hi I have two main concerns. I have been using a stock heat sink for a long time and just decided to fit in my 212 EVO heat sink. The main concern though is that I check the Core Temp software and even though the Cores look fine, the Tj. Max is always stuck at 98C. I do not know exactly what this is but after looking it up on google I found many forums where people said it should be below 75C. Is this something to worry about?

Core Temp Screenshot:




For my next question like I said I just installed 212 EVO heatsink and I do not know which side I should fit the Fan to. This is how it looks now:



As you can see its on the left and blows air into the back of the PC. Should it be on the right or is this the best place to put it while there is only one fan?

Also how much do you recommend me to OC with an i5-2500k CPU @ 3.30GHz? I was told 4.2GHz should be a safe bet but not done OCing before. This is of course only if my current Core Temp is fine.

Thanks!

[Killora]

TJ max is the maximum temperature the CPU will go to before shutting down. Once it reaches the T-junction, it will auto shut down. This obviously is not good. All it's doing is stating what temperature it is, the CPU isnt actually running at that.

The heatsink looks fine.

4.5ghz is usually a sweet spot for gaming. I'd go for that if temperatures allow for it, which i can't tell you based on idle temperatures :P

[vesseblah]

TjMax means the limit of the processor. If the temperature goes over that the processor will be shut down to prevent it from dying. The temperatures your CPU is running is 34-40C varying from core to core. That means there's a maximum of about 55C degrees of headroom to overclock although it's not recommended going over 80C.

Ideally CPU heatsink fan should be placed on the other side, looking at your picture on the right side of the heatsink blowing through the heatsink and towards the back end of the case. If I understand you correctly the fan is pulling air through the heatsink and blowing it towards the back of the case and the other fan right next to it. It should work fine but is not as optimal as pushing air right through the heatsink and you might be running 1-2C warmer than if the fan was on the right side of the heatsink.

[Deleted]

Thank you for everything, that has put my worries at ease. Unfortunately though I cannot put the fan on the opposite side as I just found out it hits the RAM. Even with low profile RAM it would still hit it lol. I am unsure how other PC set ups do this but it looks impossible :S

But hopefully it should be at least better than a stock heat sink and I will test out some OCing ^^


EDIT: I have a problem with OCing!

I have just been to the BIOS and tried to OC my PC by changing it to 4.2GHz up from the standard 3.30GHz but both my Computer properties in Windows 7 and the CPU-Z program I was recommended to use both do not show this new CPU speed. I am unsure what I did wrong but is there something else I need to do in the BIOS or perhaps something else entirely?

Here is a Photo of my BIOS options and the out comes that the PC says:



I am completely lost with this one so any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you

[noteworthynerd]

I would recommend resetting your BIOS back to default and then following this guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/c...#post_16165764

That's the guide I followed when I first started overclocking ~1 year ago.

[Asmekiel]

I am completely lost with this one so any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you

That's what Windows and CPU-Z do in those lines, they only show the stock speeds. You want to look at the Clocks area in the bottom left in CPU-Z.
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2175137 Took this from the OC leaderboards. As you can see the specification still says 3.3GHz, while it's clearly running at 5GHz.

[Deleted]

I would recommend resetting your BIOS back to default and then following this guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1198504/c...#post_16165764

That's the guide I followed when I first started overclocking ~1 year ago.

I recommend this too. There's a few things you want to disable when overclocking, to improve stability as well as performance.

[Deleted]

Okay so I just reset my BIOS for the 3rd time and now the CPU-Z says the Core speed is 4190.6 MHz up from the initial 1596MHz. The windows panel does not say thing different still but a lot of people seem to have thatissue and doubt its possible to fix. I also used a program called CPU Speed Professional and did a CPU Speed test to only still show 3292 Mhz so thats not a lot of good either :S

EDIT: Nevermind it went back down to 1596MHz..

[vesseblah]

I have just been to the BIOS and tried to OC my PC by changing it to 4.2GHz up from the standard 3.30GHz but both my Computer properties in Windows 7 and the CPU-Z program I was recommended to use both do not show this new CPU speed.

Your CPU-Z shows clearly (in the bottom left corner) the processor is running currently at 16x 100MHz speed which is the normal idle speed. Start some program that hits the CPU usage to max such as Prime95 and you should see it jump up to 42x 100MHz.

[Deleted]

Your CPU-Z shows clearly (in the bottom left corner) the processor is running currently at 16x 100MHz speed which is the normal idle speed. Start some program that hits the CPU usage to max such as Prime95 and you should see it jump up to 42x 100MHz.

Do you mean in the Multiplier box that says x 16.0? Not sure why the CPU Speed test did not show this :/
Ok yes I definitely see that now. I just wish it shows that on the Windows properties. It would be a lot less confusing ^^

And that CPU Speed professional software seems terrible so I will just forget about that. Thank you!

[vesseblah]

Do you mean in the Multiplier box that says x 16.0?

Yep, exactly that.

[Confined]

TJmax means the temps where the CPU reduces its clock and voltage to prevent damage. It doesn't mean auto shutdown.
Also the fan should be the other way, since its pushing air through the heat sink, you want the hot air outside the case, not circulating inside it.

[Yohassakura]

Thank you for everything, that has put my worries at ease. Unfortunately though I cannot put the fan on the opposite side as I just found out it hits the RAM. Even with low profile RAM it would still hit it lol. I am unsure how other PC set ups do this but it looks impossible :S

Well, this is My Heatsink, kind of big compared to yours (thought I do have Low-Profile RAM). If you had some, it would probably fit.

[Cows For Life]

TJmax means the temps where the CPU reduces its clock and voltage to prevent damage. It doesn't mean auto shutdown.
Also the fan should be the other way, since its pushing air through the heat sink, you want the hot air outside the case, not circulating inside it.

Yes and if the fan is indeed blowing towards the back of the case, be aware that most heatsinks perform worse in a "pull" configuration (air drawn through the fins, as opposed to air forced through them). Can the tower heatsink be installed in a reversed position?

[Deleted]

What you're seeing is the computer downclocking itself when it doesn't need full power. My 3570K @ 4.9GHz is running at about 1.6GHz when not stressing it.

However, I (much like more ppl in this thread) recommend you reset everything and start following that guide. There's a lot of things that one might forget. OC'ing is very easy, but sadly it's not just changing the multiplier just yet.

@Yohassakura: Cough, cable management, cough.