Problem with CPU Waterblock or Something Else?

- I9-9900K. Gigabyte z390 Aorus Master.

- XD5 pump/res. XC7 CPU Water block.

- 680x Case.

- 1x240mm radiator and 1x120mm radiator. (water cooling for GPU to be added soon….).

Everything seems to be setup correctly in iCue, and works as described in instructions and in forum posts.

I don’t think the CPU water block is transferring heat from the CPU as much as it should, and was looking for any advice or other thoughts before I remove it, re-thermal paste it, and try to put it back on.

Idle, the CPU temperature (using Speccy) is around 31C. Coolant temperature around 30C.

Yesterday, I tried my first attempts at moderate overclocking. Used OCCT to get the CPU to 100%. Depending on the specifics of the OC settings, the CPU would get up to anywhere between 75C and 90C or so.

The coolant would slowly climb up to around 34C – 35C only. The fans on the radiators (set up as “Hydro X Fans” would kick on around 34.5C or so – just as they are supposed to from what I’ve read. They only get up to around 500rpm and steady-out there.

It would seem that if the CPU is that hot, the coolant should be getting hotter than it does (if the CPU waterblock is installed and good thermal connectivity), right?

Nope, the liquid is barely heated by the CPU block. It will ideally stay where you have it, in the mid 30s.

CPU is a lot of focused heat on a small surface so the temps will still read somewhat high when overclocking, and OCCT is pretty overkill too..

You'll understand even better when you watercool your GPU. It is on a massive die and they cool really well.. but they heat up the water more since heat is better transferred.

Maybe you could gain a few ° by using a better thermal paste, depending on what you currently have

Nope, the liquid is barely heated by the CPU block. It will ideally stay where you have it, in the mid 30s.

CPU is a lot of focused heat on a small surface so the temps will still read somewhat high when overclocking, and OCCT is pretty overkill too..

 

You'll understand even better when you watercool your GPU. It is on a massive die and they cool really well.. but they heat up the water more since heat is better transferred.

 

Maybe you could gain a few ° by using a better thermal paste, depending on what you currently have

Thank you so much for that reply! I won't take it off and re-thermal paste it or anything then. I'm not worried about a degree or two -- I thought something was grossly wrong -- nice to hear it isn't.

The GPU and waterblock show up tomorrow, so excited to see the difference.

Thanks again!

What's your vCore (vCPU in iCUE) reading?

That has more impact on your CPU temps than anything. And if you are using one of the auto-overclock settings, it's likely super-high.

What's your vCore (vCPU in iCUE) reading?

That has more impact on your CPU temps than anything. And if you are using one of the auto-overclock settings, it's likely super-high.

Well, since temps were getting so hi, in the end (after trying a couple different methods of OC'ing) I just set everything back to "normal" except I did change (which was not part of either OC'ing method I'd tried) the first setting in the bios (something like "CPU Upgrade" or similar I think) to "Gaming" and it's been like that since. Played World of Warcraft last night for a couple hours (about 20% CPU load) with that setting and the CPU was at 5.0GHZ, stable, and a reasonable temp.

I didn't note vCPU in iCue at the time of trying the "real" OC'ing. For what it's worth, sitting here idle right now it's ranging from 0.97v to 1.25v -- varies quite a bit.

After I install the GPU waterblock tomorrow, I'll try OC'ing again and definitely pay attention to the vCPU in iCue!

Thanks!