Safe Xeon Temperatures?

[indivision]

I just put together a machine with a Xeon E-2136.

It appears to be performing well. But, using the stock CPU fan, it's reaching temperatures of around 82 C under medium/heavy loads.

Is that normal? Or, should I consider installing a better fan?

 

[jgreco]

That's much better heatsink, fan, thermal paste, etc. territory.

 

[rvassar]

It's a bit warm, I'd certainly try and do something to improve on that. But dependent on your summer conditions, if that's truly the peak, it's not alarmingly "shut down now" warm. I've performed QA validation on systems presenting CPU temps all the way up to 95/C, which is warm enough to make a cup of tea in Denver... It became a "grumpy *nix curmudgeon footnote" in the otherwise passing test. YMMV, and likely a lot lower than 95/C...

 

[Samuel Tai]

Intel ARK shows the maximum permissible temperature at the die-heatsink interface is 100 C. You're definitely going to need better cooling.

 

[indivision]

Thank you. It's just surprising that this would happen with the stock Intel fan that came with the CPU. This was with the case wide open in a climate-controlled room. So, no case excuse going on.

Really appreciate the additional info/perspectives. I'm now installing a large radiator cooler I had sitting here for a gaming build. Hopefully that performs better.

[ Hm. It turns out that there is nowhere to plug in this RGB cable on a Supermicro board. ;) ]

 

[indivision]

Follow up. Ok, yeah. With this bigger cooler (Cooler Master Hyper 212 with 1 fan) the thread temps bounce around between 59-68C trending on the lower side with the same load.

So, stock Intel fans are apparently crap.

 

[jgreco]

Follow up. Ok, yeah. With this bigger cooler (Cooler Master Hyper 212 with 1 fan) the thread temps bounce around between 59-68C trending on the lower side with the same load.

That's perfect. It wasn't that the 82C was necessarily going to kill you, but it suggested that something was amiss. Now and then things don't get seated quite right or the default thermal pad manages to develop an air bubble or stuff like that...

So, stock Intel fans are apparently crap.

Sometimes, yes. I think the quality varies from year to year.

 

[indivision]

Now and then things don't get seated quite right or the default thermal pad manages to develop an air bubble or stuff like that...

I think it probably was something like this. I did shift the thing around a bit when installing. But, I think it was a good end-result anyway (using the other cooler). When solid cooling options are available for low cost, it doesn't really make sense to rely on something that is "just enough".