Which Temps Should I Be Looking At?

[seanx24x]

Hey all so I recently got my first rig up and running, I wanted to ask a question about temps and cooling in my Corsair 500D case.

 

I'm using the Corsair H150I Pro XT to cool my Intel i9-10900k, when I go into iCue its giving me a temp of 22.80 C on the cooler but when I look the Hardware monitor app its telling me the CPU is 36 C?

 

I want to make sure I'm looking at the correct temps and I also wanted to ask what the safe limits are for my CPU. I've pasted screengrabs of what Im looking at below.

 

Thanks in advance

 

https://imgur.com/MSP9u5k

https://imgur.com/vdOciU2

[c-attack]

You look at both, but each is measuring something different. CPU temp you know and it has clear limits. The H150i Temp is coolant temperature and a relative measure of how much heat is in the cooling system. All of the actual “cpu cooling” is done by the cold plate strapped to processor. It’s purely conductive and it works the same whether you are using an air cooler or water. A 10900K strapped to a little air blower and another to a massive 1x1 meter external cooling array will both have the same load cpu temp - at least for about 5 seconds. It’s what each cooler does with the conductive heat that determines the end performance.

 

The water is not cooling the cpu. It serves as a heat transport system from cpu block pick up to radiator drop off. The fans then blow it somewhere else. An air cooler works in a similar fashion over shorter distance. The water can hold a much larger amount of heat and you can get much larger areas for dispersal. However, the conductivity at the cold plate works both ways. If you don’t get rid of heat, then some of it will be returned to the cpu. Coolant temperature is the minimum possible cpu temp with zero volts. Then the relationship is +1C coolant temp = +1C CPU temp. The same is true in reverse and -1 coolant reduces the cpu temp -1. This is why the fans operate from the coolant temperature. If it does not increase, you can’t reduce the cpu temp.

 

Everyone is limited by voltage for their clocks and usage. I can get you that 1x1 meter cooler and you still can’t run 1.50v on the 10900K because it hits 100C the second load is initiated. The cooler doesn’t even factor. The difference between coolers is how long they can run at normal voltage settings and how much noise they make doing so. The more surface area you have, the less fan speed you need. I don’t have a lot of data on the 10900k yet. The actual power draw figures are all over the place depending on load and what you do with the power settings. Generally, a 360mm radiator will have a +10C rise in coolant temp at 300W with a 1300 rpm medium fan speed. That means you likely will see coolant rise in the 5-8C range for more normal use. That is the value you are attacking with fan speed.