Quote:
Originally posted by PZEROFGH
This is a temp guide so you know how hot things should get and how hot things shouldnt get. If your OC'ing or not
The Video card is supposed to withstand much hotter temps then your CPU. The older 6*** series from nVidia are known to run much hotter then the new 78** series. As the 8** series from ATI i dont really konw much about them because they are crap and are a waste of money 
Video card Temps
Stock
idle - 30-40C
full - 50-60C
if you have a 6*** series you could be running upwards to 80C which is OK.
If you are running hotter then 80C or want to do a little more OC but you are getting held back by the heat, you can invest in a third party heatsink and some AS5
Zalman VF-700cu and the NV silencers are one of the best.
With these on, with AS5 of course, your temps should be running 5-10C lower then with stock cooling, and you should be able to OC your video card some more.
CPU
CPU's shouldnt be running higher then 60C. The AMD 64's are known to run pretty cool.
AMD Single core
Idle - 20-35C
Full 35-50C
Dual core
X2's
Idle 30-40C
Full 40-55C
The opterons are known to run a little hotter then the X2's or the single core
Idle 35-40C
Full 40-55C
As for Intel, if you OC them you will get really high temps, upwards to 60-70C which then you would want to invest in some decent cooling
As for heatsinks, the zalman CNPS9500 or Big typhoon are the beste out there.
If you dont feel like spending money for those 30-50 dollar heatsinks, here are a couple of steps to cool down your temps
1) Get a can of compressed air and clean out your exsisitng heatsink of dust, and your case.
2) Rewire some cables so it is cleaner and can get some decent airflow through the case
3) Buy some cheap fans 2-10 dollars and mount them in free fan slots.
Case Airflow
One of the most important factors when trying to cool down your temps.
The ideal setup for case airflow, is mounting some case fans in the front of your case, for intake, or blowing air INTO the case. If your case has a side fan, you want that to be blowing air INTO the case. If your case has a mountable fan in the rear of the case, you would want to place that as EXAHUST, or blowing air OUT of the case. Usually people recommend putting a blowhole at the top, so it would blow air OUT of the case, like a blowhole  lol.
Cleaning your wires
To start off if you have an IDE hdd you can buy some rounded ones so they arent so big and bulky as the regular IDE cables. What you want to do, is to not have so many wires blowing the fans, and inside your CPU heatsink  Most people do is put wires behind their mobo rack, or inside the optical drive rack. Having a clean case will make your CPU and GPU very happy people 
As if you fry something because you read what to do in this guide, it isnt my fault. Though if you do break something you should not get back into the computer building business at all. So enjoy your new hardware, and see what kind of temps they get |
its not a bad guide but I think its a little misleading.. first off the threshold for most 6800 series cards is 120.. which means you are probably safe close to that.. even though I don't want my card running that high..
Also you can run your cpu @ close to 60 and it wont hurt it @ all... I myself hardly break 50 anymore with a 3200 @ 2.6 but thats because my cooling is fine
but I think its a great guide for all the fools who just can't understand you can look on intel or amds website!!!!!