How hot is too hot?

[kaparker]

I just purchased a 1.4 AMD system from a computer show. The sellers installed a generic heatsink in the system - I purchased the system as is. The system is running at 47-48C, with no load. The ambient temperature is 27C. I don't plan on overclocking the system, or pushing the system too hard in the near future. Should I go to the expense of adding a better heat sink to the system, or is running the system at ~48C detrimental? The system is stable, and varies little from the 47-48C CPU temp, after initial startup. Obviously, dropping the the temp a few degrees is great, but is it worth the $40-50 (Heatsink, Fan, Arctic Silver II, etc.) it would cost for the upgrade? How hot is too hot?

System:
1.4 Ghz AMD Processor
Soyo Dragon Motherboard
256Mb Micron DDR Ram
64Mb Pine AGP Video Card
Sony CD-RW CRX1611
30GB Maxtor Hard Drive
1 Case Fan blowing to outside of case
Generic Heat Sink & Fan

[Sonny]

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS. What are the full load temps? That is if you're not afraid to push it that hard with the current cooler. It's a matter of finding the stability at 100% CPU usage that leads ME to always find better cooling. With that idea it really doesn't matter if you O/C or not. Try Sandra2001 Burn-In wizard then Prime95 then 3DMark2001. Make sure to run all the tests & monitor your temps closely. All of the tests should run without a problem if you have enough cooling. My personal opinion would be to buy the best HSF if you can afford it.

[dimmreaper]

An Alpha PAL-6035 with a Sunon 23CFM fan should do great on a non-overclocked 1.4GHz, and it will be very quiet too :)