What is a safe/normal temp for CPU?

That does seem high for stock temps, make sure you have mounted the heat sink firmly and that there was adequate thermal paste applied, another thing to consider is the ambient temps, as they will also effect your CPU.

This was taken from the Tom's Hardware forum just to give some perspective.

1. Core i7 920 @ Stock HSF is 35C at 23C room temperature. Temperature is steady

Case: Coolermaster HAF 932 with preinstalled fans
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5


2. Core i7 965@ Stock HSF is 35C at 25C room temperature but the individual core temperatures raises up to 47C without doing much. I did some video rendering using adobe premiere pro cs4 which makes good use of the processor while HWMonitor (used to measure temperature) was running parallely, the highest temperature went up to 67C not on the processor but on the individual cores and so the average cpu temperature would have been lot higher.

Case: CoolerMaster Stacker 832 with 3 intake running@1500 rpm approximately outputting 40-50CFM each with 3 exhaust. 1 on the side fan tray at the top close the front door as the intel stock HSF pushes air inside the cpu, should not place an exhaust fan in line to the HSF, 1 on the back and 1 on the top.
Motherboard: Same as above


3. Core i7 965@ Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 1366RT @ 25C average room temperature. The BIOS temperature is around 25C for the processor with the coolermaster stacker 832 with a different fan arrangement as follows:

--> Side fan tray removed completely
-->Fixed a intake fan (akasa @ 1500 rpm blowing 50 cfm approx.) at the bottom front where the air mesh is. Remove 2 screws from the bottom mesh from the sides towards the centre, drill through the mesh in the front to match the holes below to accomodate a bottom intake fan. This fan blows air directly into my ATI Radeon 3970X2, which cools it down to 46C as idle temperature.

--> Clear up the front 5.25 bays, 4th,5th and 6th from the top, use the air mesh and one of the fan frame from the side fan tray and fix a intake fan (mine is sanyo denkin @ 1500rpm avg. This blows air directly towards the fan intake of thermalright ultra 120 extreme. My thermalright ultra 120 extreme has only one fan and there is no fan on the side facing the exhaust fan (thermalright 120mm fan @ 2000 rpm).

Results:

HWMonitor - all the cores temperatures are between 30-40C while just surfing the internet
EVEREST Ultimate - CPU temp. is 48 while the individual cores are showing between 30-40C
Gigabyte Easy Tune 6 shows CPU is 28C while the system is 30C

It is lot cooler than the stock HSF and with 2 less no. of fans.


It may be bit high but remember it also depends on your room temperature and the amount of fans in the case. Too many fans blowing air in that the out fans can also cause heat build up. Also, improper heat sink installation, too much or too less thermal paste can also cause problem.

I remember while installing the core i7 920 stock HSF, I ended up breaking the plastic push clips, it didn't lock in properly and the temperature was going up by 1degree every 2 seconds in BIOS.

Check the back of the motherboard, see if you can see the black tips of the push pins of Heat sink. If so, then your room temperature is high or too many or too less fans or too much or too less thermal paste.

Taken from here. High temp for i7 Running @ Stock

BucSox79 said:

Thanks for that info.

Looks like I should get an after market heat sink. Right now I am only running Utorrent and surfing the net and temps seem high to me.

Just to be sure of those temps it would be worth checking the temps in the Bios to see if they are the same, it might be that your software is not reading it right.

just curious if you have an exhaust case fan? And maybe one mounted on the front pulling fresh air in?

You should have no worries with that case, it has more than enough fans, can you please check what your bios temps are telling you, I think that your temp monitor may be out by about 5c.

LOL at least you found out sooner rather than later, those temps seem allot better now and they are about as good as you get from the stock heat sink, if you are thinking of overclocking I would suggest something better and as you have an enthusiast MB I am guessing you will.

Personally I like water cooling as temps will rarely go 10c over idle temps under full load and as soon as it backs off the temp drops back almost instantly, ATM the ambient temp is 30c and my CPU is at 32c so that is about as good as it gets, CPU is a E8500 3.16Ghz OC @ 3.8Ghz.