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Hello tech report!

I have recently bought a Core i7 2600k and have overclocked to 4.43Ghz using the automatic overclocking mode on the Asus P8Z68-V PRO board (just for the time being, I hope to do it properly later). I have the Arctic pro 7 cooler rev2, and at idle I am getting temps of 40°C and under load the temps go to 70-76-74-71°C. When was running at stock speeds I was getting idle temps of around 35°C.

In your opinion is this too hot? I have read around loads of forums and people say they dont really go about 50-60°C on load. Do you think I should reset my fan on the cpu, or take any other action?

I use the computer to do a lot of video encoding and terrain generation, which uses 100% cpu load so I'm quite eager to know if doing these will be damaging my chip if done for long durations. Sometimes the stuff I do can take 7-8 hours of rendering with the cpu at 100%.

Thanks for your help.

The chip will automatically throttle itself back if it gets too hot. That happens to the 2600k at around 95* C or so, so you are fine. Your temps of 70-76 are expected for your overclock. To test if you're stable at that speed run a day or two's worth of Super Pi and Prime95. If you can do that without errors, the overclock is good.

Thanks for your reply. I was thinking of getting a different cooler, but I think i'll leave it for the time being. i was just a bit concerned the temps appeared quite high, but I guess its all good.

The auto-overclock wizard can be a little over-generous with the voltages sometimes, you'll probably be able to shave a little bit off if you start manually tweaking .

Mentawl wrote:

The auto-overclock wizard can be a little over-generous with the voltages sometimes, you'll probably be able to shave a little bit off if you start manually tweaking .

Yeh good plan, thanks for the response. I will have a look at the voltages and gradually try to bring them down. Do you think I should start with the current voltage and move it down in small increments until it becomes unstable on a prime95 test, and then just use the stable voltage?

I am looking into buying an additional 140mm fan for my case to try and improve the airflow a bit. Does anyone have any recommendations? I would prefer a fan with better airflow rather than quiet, but if it could be quiet that would be a great bonus as well.

Again, cheers for your inputs, its putting my mind at ease.