3gig prescot thermal compound and heat question

is the thermal compound that comes with cpu any good?
my temps are 44 celcius idle and 57-58celcius when playing games.

are they too high.

No, thats not good.... You should use Arctic Silver5, nothing else!!!!

Those temps are fine

Dave

Temps are fine but I would still suggest some AS5.

REALLY? thats so hot!!! i will for sure get some new compound!!! what celcius does it bring it down to?

My cpu was just installed couple hours ago...does it take a while for the compound to do its job?

AS5 will help, but maybe on the order of a few degrees C. You should pick up a better fan if you're interested in a significant drop (Ilike the Zalman 7000Cu since its' quiet and cools well).

On another note, those temps are fine for a Prescott. Most people don't realize that the Prescott has more heat by design because of the strained silicon .09 micron process. Higher temps are not only noremal, but the chip is deisgned to handle it. Whereas those temps could be alarming with a Northwood (not even really) early Prescotts are known to get up in the 70's on air cooling...and that will not damage the cpu. If you get into the 70's you'll likely see a small performance hit due to thermal throttling, but I doubt you'll damage the cpu before the system shuts itself down.

Shane

ah alright alright thanks for the info. i read in the faq that they were slightly higher but did not know they would be that high.

Those temps are ok for a stock heatsink. By that I mean that they are well within the safe range. In the context of overclocking however, temps are never ok unless a better cooling system costs more than you want to pay. Processors will always do a little better if you cool them down a little more. Rule of thumb is 2-3% for clockspeed for every 10C drop.

So the real question is: would I spend another $50 on a heatsink that should get me about 5% more speed? Only you can answer that one.

If you dont feel like spending on your computer, your temps are fine.

temps are fine. if you find that the heatsink is too loud under load (I did), or you wish to overclock, then you may want to go to a better heatsink/fan combo.

Prescott's normally are set to throttle at 70c so you're well below that.