CPU temp is very high

I recently have been looking at my CPU temperature and noticed that it seems extremely high, however, I am unsure if is actually high or it is an error with Core Temp and other temp monitoring programs (I also tried speed fan to verify). I have a new dell xps8100 desktop (about a year old) with a Core i5 650 CPU which has 2 cores with hyper threading. My computer has always run smooth and can't understand how my CPU temps can be this high. Can this be an error since my computer has 2 physical and 2 logical cores? I mean Core Temp is showing that my computer hit the TJmax. Any ideas?

Here are some pics:

OK - so I seems like all who responded feel that this has something to do with the cooling and it is not related to my system having logical cores (I was hoping that the program might be doubling my cpu temps for that reason). I will check my fans for some dust but I do not really know much about the heat sink or dry paste and really would prefer avoiding going into my computer as I am afraid I might touch the wrong thing.

Additionally when my computer starts up the core temps are around 70 degrees C - which seems kind of high.

whs said:

70C at startup is a lot. Do you happen to know what PSU is installed in your system and did you ever check whether it functions properly. Maybe the CPU gets too much juice.

Hi WHS, I don't know for sure what the PSU is but I read from others who have the same computer that it is a 350 watt power supply, which they say is not much. Also, to sort of confirm my doubts regarding the accuracy of Core Temp due to the hyper threading I ran my dell pc checkup (which is PC-Doctor) and performed a stress test on my CPU and this a a screen shot of what I got:



From what I can tell the 88c and 82c were the max temps recorded during the test. Does this provide any insight?