Temperature Monitors - Infrared Thermometer?

Teleos Rix

New member
About a week ago I built my new comp
AMD FX 8150
8 GB G Skill Sniper 1866 OC (Going to order 8 GB more when they go on sale again)
Asrock Extreme3 970
Diablotek 775W
Rosewill Ranger Mid ATX
Sapphire HD 4670 1 GB 128bit (Ordered a Sapphire HD 6850 1 GB 256bit, few days till I get it)

What confuses me when I first put it together, in BIOS it said the CPU temp was idling at 51C. I pretty much freaked out thinking this thing was going to melt under any load. Anyways, AMD Overdrive, Speedfan, HWMonitor, HWInfo, CoreTemp say its running much cooler than what BIOS says. I know everyone says BIOS is always more accurate. But 51C is over 123F, and I put my hand on the heatsink and around the motherboard and it doesnt feel much above ambient.

Since I used the Sapphire 4670 in my old comp, I have a general idea what it idled at in that comp, which had poor air flow. It idled at 47C/116F. In the new comp with much better airflow, it idles at 42C/108F. Under load it was 74C/166F. New comp 54C/129F. EDIT: Should also point out in the old comp, I had a processor bottleneck, I couldnt get the GPU over 30% usage, new comp has no problem getting GPU at 100%.

The old comp had only 1 80mm exhaust fan, plus another in the PSU. Inside of case was easily 100+ degrees during just idling. The new Ranger tower has 1 140mm exhaust up top, 1 120mm exhaust in back, 1 120mm intake in front, 140mm exhaust in the PSU, lots of mesh/grills all over it for passive exhaust/intake also. The case is pretty much ambient during idle and during 30% cpu load. Doesnt feel warm at all unless I use Prime95 to put 100% load on the 8 cores.

I had already planned on getting a CM Hyper 212 EVO, but will be another 2 weeks due to bills. Is there any other software that might show which temperatures are actually true? When my Radeon 6850 arrives in a few days, I'm going to slap some TX-2 on my FX 8150 just to hold it over (didnt do it right away cause I was curious about the stock heatsink/fan/greases performance).

Also can anyone recommend a cheap, but accurate infrared temperature reader so I can have something tangible to give a reading?
 
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My Computer

OS
Win 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
I have a cheap but decent one I use for auto work - really got it to see how a cat converter was working. It gave me good enough readings for that. Some people use them for amusement, like to measure the temp of their dog's butt.
I used mine once, on the cat converter. My son has it now.
No idea if it can focus on computer parts.
I always read Amazon reviews for this kind of thing.
This is what looks like good for you.
Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Raytek MT4 Mini Temp Non-Contact Thermometer Gun with Laser Sighting

But there are plenty others to choose from.
 

My Computer

Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Home Built
OS
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
CPU
QuadCore Intel Core i7 920, 2666 MHz (20 x 133)
Motherboard
Asus P6T
Memory
6134 MB (DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM)
Graphics Card(s)
(2 - SLI) NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 (1024 MB)
Sound Card
Onboard Realtek ALC888/1200 @ Intel 82801JB IC
Monitor(s) Displays
HDMII
Screen Resolution
1280 x 800
Hard Drives
Crucial M4 (64 GB SSD)
WD Caviar Blacks
WD5001AALS-00J7B1 ATA Device (465 GB)
WD5001AALS-00J7B1 ATA Device (465 GB)
WD5001AALS-00L3B2 ATA Device (465 GB)
WD Elements USB External (250 GB)
PSU
Corsair 550
Case
iStarUSA S-10000BL Black
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