Confusing OC...

[Zen Ninja]

I have recently OC'ed my i7 930 to 3.8 Ghz; everything seems to be running well except that my idle temps are between 40-45C, however, my 100% full load temps are only 65-70C.

I expected my loaded temps to be far higher given my idle temps (at least based on past OC's). Does this make sense? Is there any way I can lower my idle temps or are they acceptable?

I used Prime95 and OCCT to test.

My fan speed does not increase with load BTW.

Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

 

[Zen Ninja]

I just ran Intel BurnTest and it never broke 70-71C at 100% load. I know my load temps are considered acceptable but what about idle?

 

[Yuriman]

What do you use to read temperatures? CoreTemp/RealTemp?

How warm is ambient?

 

[Zen Ninja]

Ambient is 22C.

CoreTemp, RealTemp and HWinfo on separate occasions.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Don't forget that unlike SB and IB, Nehalem doesn't power-gate the cores at idle.

 

[Zen Ninja]

I'm sorry--power-gate?

 

[Yuriman]

It's a lower power idle feature - unused transistors are literally shut off on Sandy and Ivy, and are just inactive but powered on in earlier chips.

Honestly it looks fine to me, no need for concern.

 

[Ketchup]

Yeah, you're good.

 

[Zen Ninja]

Thanks.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Thanks.

Do you have Hyper-Threading "enabled?"

 

[Zen Ninja]

Disabled. I don't see the need.

 

[Zen Ninja]

All I do is game BTW. when gaming my temps never surpass 55C even when playing GW2 which uses 75% of my CPU.