▷ Core temp: what is it and what is it for?

In this articles we present Core Temp, a great free tool to control the temperature of the processor.

Surely many of you are concerned if the temperature of your CPU is too high, right? This problem usually only appears in cases of overclocking, although it may also occur if the heatsink is more installed or if the thermal paste has dried excessively.

Core Temp allows you to control the temperature of your processor in a very simple way

More and more users are choosing to buy custom, piece-mounted PCs, this opens the door for a beginner to overclock the CPU, or for the heatsink to be installed incorrectly. These two situations can cause overheating in the CPU, so be careful to see that the processor is operating at the correct temperature. To find out the CPU temperature, you can download a third-party program that can read the temperature in each processor core.

We recommend reading our article on AMD Ryzen - The best processors manufactured by AMD

The easiest way to check the temperature of your CPU is to install Core Temp, a free tool that includes many functions. Core Temp is a compact, hassle-free, compact, yet powerful program for monitoring processor temperature and other vital information. What makes Core Temp unique is the way it works. It is capable of displaying the temperature of each core in your system.

All major processor manufacturers have implemented a "DTS" (digital thermal sensor) in their products. The DTS provides more accurate and higher resolution temperature readings than conventional on-board thermal sensors. This feature is compatible with all recent x86 processors. Intel, AMD, and VIA processors are supported.

Once you have downloaded the software, you just have to run the installer and then open it like any other program. Once Core Temp is open, you can see the average CPU temperature by looking at the bottom right of the window. You will be able to see the minimum and maximum values ​​in degrees Celsius, something that is very useful to know the maximum temperature that has been reached. These values ​​will change as you perform different tasks on your PC. For example, when playing or using a video editing program the temperature of your CPU will increase to a greater extent.

It is totally normal, since the temperature of the processor depends on the load it is supporting. The Tj value . Max informs us of the maximum temperature that our processor supports, if it reaches this limit, it will lower its performance to reduce its energy consumption and avoid burning.

Core Temp also offers us the option to limit the maximum temperature of our processor, for this we just have to go to "options" and select "overheat protection". From here we can select a maximum operating temperature, for example 90ºC in this case. We can also have the system notify us when this value is reached, or even shutdown, suspend or hibernate.

Ideal CPU temperature under load and idle

The ideal CPU temperature will depend on the processor you have, although there are some recommendations that can apply to most models. Also keep in mind that some processors can heat more than others, AMD Ryzen tend to heat less than Intel Core because of the way they are designed.

For the most part, a good rule of thumb is that you should try to keep your processor's temperature below 80ºC when you play or use heavy programs like video editing. Current processors can withstand temperatures of up to 100ºC, although only in a timely manner and it is not recommended that they be kept close to that threshold for long periods of time. Your processor will not break due to working at 90ºC, but its useful life can be shortened.

If your CPU gets close to 100ºC, you may start to notice a performance degradation because the processor is limiting its capabilities to help cool down, which is known as thermal regulation. Fortunately, modern processors are cleverly designed, if their temperatures get too high, it will simply limit their overall performance, so it's always best to keep things as cool as possible. One situation where things can go wrong is if you have a processor capable of overclocking, and you decide to manually adjust the voltage and frequency in the BIOS. In this case, you could cause actual damage to the CPU or motherboard. Also, Windows will almost certainly crash when the CPU gets too hot.

Regarding the temperature at rest, as a general rule, anything between 25 and 40 ºC is considered “cold”. YOUR CPU should be kept close to these values ​​if it is not executing any task. If you live in a very hot area it is possible that they are even higher, but in no case should it exceed 45ºC.

This ends our article dedicated to Core Temp, a very simple but powerful tool to control the operation of our PC.