How hot does your CPU run with FFXIV?Follow

Short version: for people who monitor the temperature of their CPU, how hot does it get when you play FFXIV? Mine seems to be averaging around 71 to 72, and maxing out at around 78 degrees Celsius.

Long version: back in January, I noticed that my PC was getting really, REALLY hot. I installed HWMonitor and found that my CPU was going up above 90 degrees Celsius. My PC has a quad core I5-2500 which has a "max" temperature of 72.6 degrees Celsius. I took several steps to cool things down:
1. Cleaned out the dust from the CPU's stock fan.
2. Replaced the CPU's stock fan with an Arctic Freezer 13 using pre-applied thermal compound that came with the new fan.
3. Re-installed the Arctic Freezer 13 using Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound.

The biggest drop happened with the first step. I saw virtually no change at step 2. Then I saw a small drop with step 3.

At this point, the high temperature is still above what is healthy for my CPU. So I'd like to lower the temperature of my CPU some more if I can reasonably accomplish it. I don't plan to do anything drastic like switch to a water based cooling system to accomplish it.

I know this game is very CPU intensive. Is 72 to 78 C just what I should expect to see? Am I trying to squeeze blood from a turnip trying to get it any cooler? Or is the current temperature a sign that I likely didn't apply the Arctic Silver properly? I did the pea sized drop method.

I believe HWMonitor shows me the fan speed. I could understand if there was an issue with the ball bearings if I was still using the stock fan since that fan was in operation for at least 2 years now. But I would be surprised if the new fan has already developed issues due to dust build up. I suppose it could have issues already if the fan itself was faulty.

Right now I'm not running the game, and the temperature is around 42 C with the fan running at around 1700 RPM.

My FX 8350 runs between 50 and 60 depending on what I'm doing in game. Since AMD stuff generally runs hotter than Intel, if you're getting temps higher than mine, your cooling definitely needs addressing. One thing that really helped me out was buying a better case. The case I was using before only had a three 120mm fans (front, back, side), which just wasn't cutting it. This is the case I'm using now. I paid less than half of what it's going for now, but I'm sure you could find something comparable for a decent price if you looked around a bit.

Edited, Mar 16th 2015 9:01pm by Turin

I've never applied thermal compound by hand before (it's all been pre-applied stuff previously), so I may not have done the best job. The PC is out in the living room and we keep the house at 72. I can definitely see the CPU fan spinning.

I'll try installing another program in addition to HWMonitor to make sure it's not a bug with HWMonitor.

I have a vent right on top of my case and I can look right down at the CPU fan. So when Perrin asked if the fan was actually spinning, I looked down to double check. And then I noticed a large fan in the back of the case appeared to be still.

I opened up the case and checked the power connector for that fan. One of the pins must have been loose, because after I disconnected and then reconnected the power for it, the fan is now spinning and my max temperature has gone down to 60 C, with average temp hovering around 55 to 58 C. Almost 20 degrees C drop, not bad! Thanks for the help, everyone.

Mine runs pretty hot too, whenever i can really hear my fans, i clean out the case (and the boards inside) and it's drops from 90ºC to about 75ºC again while playing FFXIV. It helps.

Another thing that helped was that i stopped multitasking. At most i have a browser up now. Before i had music on, another game to play while waiting on queue's or even a movie running meanwhile and my browser full of tabs.

You have to realize here, your computer -can- handle 90ºC. And there's a failsafe to keep it from getting hotter than it can handle. It's all metals and plastics, its not going to melt or anything. It just runs a lot better at a low temperature.

Glad you figured it out :)