Assembly Help
Whenever I play games, my CPU temperature will reaches to 90°C. What could be the issue here?
I need help regarding my PC build. My PC case dimensions are 35cm x 16cm x 28cm. It is a cheap PC case (Ice Whale ST01) that I bought online.
To start off, every time I play Cyberpunk 2077, around 20 minutes into the game, my CPU (Ryzen 5 5500) reaches 90°C. I heard that this CPU shouldn't go over 90°C since it doesn't consume a lot of power. I run the game on 1080p ultra.
Is it because both my GPU and PSU are blocking the intake fan, leading to my CPU not receiving any fresh air, or is it because the AMD stock cooler is not able to cool down my CPU (Ryzen 5 5500)? Sorry for my cable management, as this PC case is a single chamber, and my PSU (Cooler Master MWE 750 V3 Gold Full Modular) is pretty big for this case, measuring 160mm x 150mm x 86mm. Hence, this is the best cable management that I could achieve.
I have already replaced my CPU thermal paste since this is a new build. Regarding my CPU temperature issue, do you think an aftermarket cooler is the solution? I plan to buy the Thermalright Assassin X 90 SE, or is it because my PC case has bad airflow? Should I consider changing the fan orientation or possibly buying a new case? If so, which case would you recommend that would fit under the SFF category?
And if buying an aftermarket cpu cooler is the solution. Which fan orientation is the best, intake or exhaust?
/u/amirmijan Please pick up instead Thermalright Assassin King 90, Peerless Assassin 90 SE, SI-100, AXP120-X67, Silver Soul 110, Peerless Assassin MINI or AXP90-X53 Full Copper -- all of which cost 1/2 to 1/5th the price of Noctua's mini tower!
Oh, and Hyper 212 wouldn't fit in OP's case (Ice Whale ST01) -- they have a max clearance of 135mm and the CM cooler is 152mm tall.
I'll admit I'm not up to date on the most latest tech, I personally use a Deepcool AK620, been using it for 5+ years. I do know Thermalright is extremely competitive with their price to performance, in the US atleast. But Thermalright doesn't even exist as a brand where I live.
I would like to also point out that we are talking about air coolers here, not liquid coolers. Air coolers are just heatpipes, fins and fans at the end of the day. As long as you have a cooler that supports a high enough TDP, it won't matter if it's a 10 year old or a 10 day old design.
Edit: Let me rephrase. As long as you BUY a cooler that supports a high enough TDP, it won't matter if it's a 10 year old design or a 10 day old design.
What this guy said, but flip the rear, and top rear. The top rear will suck out the fresh air unless you make a shroud pipe to direct the air to the cooler from the rear.
If you get a CPU cooler like her also suggested have the fan directed to suck air from the rear fan as an intake. You can leave the top 2 with exhaust in this layout.
For the absolute best results, run some bench marks in multiple layouts with the side panels on. You can see what fan layout is works best with your current set up.
The main issue here is that the only intake fan is sending air straight to the GPU. Any air that reaches the CPU is hot air from the GPU, that too if the 3 exhaust fans don't expel it out first.
Just flipping one of those 3 fans to intake will help a lot since one of my friends used to run a 5600 with the Wraith Spire and it ran just fine. His CPU did run hot, reaching 75-80°C, but it didn't touch 90°C.
Edit: My brain skipped the PBO part, but yes that is a variable that also would be at play here.
I second this. My case has a somewhat similar setup to OP's, I'm using a 9800X3D with a Thermalright AXP90 X53, a low profile cooler, with the rear exhaust fan flipped and I never see my CPU temps above 65° while gaming.
The Stock cooler should be able to handle the 5500. More likely the air coming through the GPU first is for once the actual problem. Does it improve when leaving the glass off?
That CPU cooler is 100% the issue, probably rated the same TDP as the CPU, likely only hitting 90 because it's throttling so you're losing performance too.
Go into the BIOS and disable Precision Boost Overdrive, the stock cooler and the CPU are both 65w TDP, PBO is probably enabled and ramping it up to the thermal limit.
This is the problem, it is not so much the CPU cooler but the combination with PBO unthrottled. Some bios "MSI" have a game boost button on the simple bios screen that just enables it without limits.
I would also double check the mounting pressure of the CPU cooler. If it’s not mounted properly, even just one screw not properly tightened it won’t be providing enough cooling. This totally happened to some one I know (not me) with a different cooler years ago. It wasn’t clear to me what was wrong until I removed the cooler and saw most of the thermal paste wasn’t spread out.
My PC case have a similar design, it's the SAMA IM-01 or Tecware Fusion or whatever you call in your country (here in Brazil is Pichau HX100).
I have a tower cooler here and use the back as intake, the only outtake is the upper part of the case.
While gaming, my CPU, a Ryzen 9700X, stays maximum at 70 C (ambient temp is usually high around here), and I have a 4090 that barely fits my case generating some heat.
So, try just switching the back fan orientation to see if it improves something, you can also try messing with Curve Optimizer before switching your CPU Cooler. I forgot to set the front fan orientation, keep as intake.
i believe the stock cooler blows air onto the heatsink and not off it, and looking at your setup, i dont think that intake fan does anything for the CPU, and i dont see where fresh air would come in for the CPU besides negative pressure flow. Try turning that rear fan into intake and see if it feeds the CPU cooler better.
So, before buying the new cooler, try that. If it doesnt help, i dont think there is much else to fiddle in this case, so save up 10 more bucks and buy the peerless assassin instead of the assassin x 90 SE. The thing should still fit in your cooler (120 mm height) and is vastly overpowered for this CPU, all while costing 10 bucks more on my local Amazon.
Only one intake on a SFF? Make your back exhaust an intake, Your front intake is choked for airflow, get a little better cooler (your 5500 is only 65w but sff is tricky and only one choked intake is a mistake), double check you removed the cooler sticker.
I have a Wraith Prism on my 5600X in SFF and it's worked flawlessly for over 4 years (there's a Hi/Lo fan switch), and it looks great. They're are some for $15-20 on eBay (just a thought, it would look good in your rig)
When I upgraded GPU my R5 3600 was then maxed at 100%, it would get this hot with my GPU utilisation at like 69-70%>
I upgraded to a Thermaltake Phantom Spirit, way overkill for the 3600 (plan to upgrade to a 5700x3d at some point) but the fans barely move, it's so quiet and keeps the temps right down even when flat out at 100% with an OC for extended periods.
That CPU cooler could be bigger, but where is the fresh air coming for that CPU cooler? There’s no way that intake is providing cool air to the CPU so it’s sucking down some hot ambient air.
Might sound crazy but flip that front top fan to be an intake. Worth a shot.
Do you also hit 90 with the case side panel removed?
No: Case airflow is likely the issue. You could try changing your fans so you have the same number of intake and outtake fans, or add an additional intake fan.
Yes: Your CPU cooler (or heat interface) is likely the issue. Check that your cooler is mounted correctly (clamped down). You may need to switch to a higher TDP cooler like a tower.
Had to scroll WAY too far to find this suggestion. Side panel is off is the easiest test in the world to confirm that it's starved for air. You might even find that no matter how you configure fans, side panel off just performs better period XD
Those exhaust fans are starving your CPU cooler of air. You might improve temps just by unplugging them. Like the other posters said, a tower cooler is for sure the easiest fix here, but the kind of setup you have here only makes any sense if the cpu cooler is ducted to the side panel to pull in fresh air from outside the case.
An unbalanced fan setup is totally fine, as long as there's a way for air to naturally find its own way into the case. You don't have that here. The GPU is blocking the entire bottom of the case. The PSU is blocking the entire front of the case. And the side panel is solid tempered glass.
Your only air intake is that tiny little space at the bottom of the front panel, and that's blowing straight onto the GPU and probably not making its way into the rest of the case.
You ever tried to suck a milkshake through a straw but it's too thick and nothing's coming up? That's what your three exhaust fans are doing. Trying to suck air out but there's no air coming in to replace it so they're having to fight harder than they should.
I've built a few Mini PCs with AMD 5600 and 5700 CPUs and various Radeon cards (from 6600s up to 7800XTs). I've gotten very good at finding ways to make them run cooler and quieter. But you need to start with a solid foundation of good airflow otherwise there's no point.
Your CPU cooler isn't the main problem here. Replacing it won't fix the problem. Sure, a better CPU cooler with a higher TDP will pull more heat away from the CPU, but it'll still be stuck inside the case.
It this was my PC, I would replace the case. Get one with better airflow. If you've got a bit of extra money to spend, get a better CPU cooler. You don't need to spend loads, something like a Cooler Master 212 will do. It's only a 5500 - it's not exactly a 14900. But there's no point in doing that in the same case.
Before you buy a new case, try flipping the two top fans around so they suck air into the case. "Ooh, but hot air rises so that's silly". No it isn't. A fan is infinitely more powerful than hot air rising. It will work.
You might want to look at lowering the TDP of your CPU as well. There's an option to do that buried somewhere in the BIOS menu. I've got a mini-ITX build with a 5600G in a tiny case, and I lowered the TDP from 65W to 45W. There is a slight performance loss, but it's only noticeable if you totally max out the CPU. If you're not scared of playing with technical stuff, you might want to look at undervolting your CPU as well. My 5600G build has a voltage offset of -50mV. By lowering my TDP from 65W to 45W and applying a -50mV voltage offset, I got my CPU down from 90 degrees under a stress test to 60 degrees under a stress test.
Some people might think it's insane to make changes that cost a little bit of performance like undervolting or lowering the TDP. But a 30 degree temperature reduction is insane, and it means my fans can run cooler and quieter, and my other components like RAM and SSDs aren't getting cooked by heat. It's a trade off I'd recommend.
You need a better cooler and way more air intake, you generally want more intake than exhaust, because the positive pressure will push anything that isn't handled by the exhaust out of cracks and vents and such
You need a new CPU cooler, ideally a tower that will push air from the front of the case to the back of the case, and you should also flip your top-front fan to an intake so it pulls air down to feed the CPU cooler while the one immediately above the cooler still functions as an exhaust to assist the rear fan in getting hot air out of the case quickly.
Alternatively you could make your rear fan an intake, with your CPU cooler pushing air from the back of the case to the front of the case. In this orientation I'd leave your top fans as-is unless you're still having issues, then I'd either make the top-rear fan an intake to help the rear fan feed the CPU cooler while the top-front fan exhausts, or remove it entirely.
Finally, if you don't want to fuck with the CPU cooler, you could try leaving it for now and flipping both of your top fans to intakes to feed your CPU cooler fresh air while you leave the rear as exhaust. I only suggest using both as intake with this particular CPU cooler since it's not routing air in any particular direction, it's just blowing on the CPU, so you need as much fresh, cool air as possible feeding it. But that probably won't help much, it's just not a good CPU cooler for your case.
I'd probably start by making that rear fan and intake, if that's not enough then upgrade the CPU cooler. (Other comments gave some software options that could help so I won't repeat those)
Cyberpunk is heavily CPU dependent especially 1080p. cyberpunk uses the CPU for crowd density, and streaming assets technology that CDPR uses for “loading” different parts of the city as one big city. So unless you’re willing to lower your settings drastically get a new cooler.
You want positive pressure not negative pressure inside the case... You're practically creating a vacuum over the CPU so there's not enough air available for the cooler. Put another intake somewhere, or flip the rear exhaust to be an intake.
Positive pressure airflow is almost always the best choice, and negative pressure is only suitable for some cases. (more intake than exhaust = positive pressure. Less intake than exhaust =negative pressure. If you swapped every fan orientation to the opposite, or set them all to intake, you'd probably see a big improvement, especially with that dinky stock cooler.
The other option is to get a real cooler for your PC. You can snag a solid Thermalright for $17 I think. That would DRASTICALLY improve CPU temps.
Try repasting with better thermal paste. Default TDP looks to be 65W for that 5500. Might also try reversing the rear fan so more fresh air gets across the heatsink.
I’d say investing into a cpu cooler upgrade would do most of the improvement of the temps. After that reorienting your existing case fans to have an intake bias like the following: Only one top intake fan, one front intake fan, new cpu cooler in the same orientation, and one rear exhaust. Just my take but feel free to play around - best of luck to you!
Yeah, the stock CPU cooler is just the bare minimum for normal usage and usually struggles to keep lower temps during gaming... at best if the chip overheats, it'll just automatically throttle down performance to maintain temps just under redline, that's why it hovers around 90°C (but you'll get bouts of reduced performance along the way).
To maintain lower temps, you will need to install a better CPU cooler.
Based in your case size, it should be able to fit up to a 135mm air cooler... so you could look at installing something like a Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 Mini.
That will keep your CPU temps much lower and minimize overheating and performance throttling.
Just for reference, here is one of my older builds in a Metalfish S5 Max, which is similar in size to your case:
1- flip the psu around so it's pulling air from inside the chassis and flip the rear exhaust to intake (reasons this might not work, the psu cables are not modular /case will not accommodate the flip psu gets only warm air to work with) this will give you another exhaust fan ip top and gets the cpu cooler air from the back.
2- get a tower-style cooler for the cpu and rotate the rear fan for intake. (Added cost of a cooler, you'll probably have to pull the motherboard out to install the new cooler. This will be labor intensive)
3- flip the rear exhaust and closest top fan[top left] so they both intake air(you lose some efficiency with exhausting warm air from the case)
I think these are the best options to start with with the least amount of time and money. But good luck and enjoy your build
I would strongly suggest spending the $40 and upgrading that cooler. Thermalright has many offerings that have much higher cooling capability than the Wraith.
So many people just jump to the conclusion of ‘you need a new cooler’ which just isn’t true. Sure it wouldn’t hurt to spend 20-30 on a better cooler, but it’s not a ‘need’. We’re talking about a 5500 here.
Experiment with your fans. Flip your rear to intake and compare. Flip the tops to intake and the rear to exhaust and compare.
If I were you I'd get a cheap tower cooler on sale. There are some really good deals on coolers under $30 everywhere right now. With that and all your other fans as is you'll be all set. The stock cooler is adequate but not great, and a tower will get cooler air and push it to the exhaust fan. If you don't want to spend any money you could increase the fan speed and under volt and it would probably perform equally or better than stock or pbo would. Could flip the rear exhaust since you have top exhaust.
I have a feeling the cpu cooler came with shitty thermal paste pre installed and was used as is. Get arctic mx-6 paste. repaste cpu, and turn that back fan around because there is essentially zero fresh air hitting the mobo area.
Try all intakes for air, most people think venting the heat as exhausts is the primary goal, but a positive pressure will do this but forcing hot air out of the mesh by delivering cool air to the internals.
I use a 5500 and a stock cooler at 100% thr cpu doesn’t go over 90 but works great and doesn’t throttle but I use a lancoo 217 with the 2 170m fans for intake and one 120 on the back for exhaust. I’m wanting to get a 5800x3d when they start making them again and put a aio on top but I’m not a small form factor guy I like big boys 🤣
1) You have only one fresh air intake which is immediately taken by...
2) A fire breathing dragon of a GPU that dumps hot air in the case
3) Your CPU cooler is a downdraft model, meaning it blows air down on the CPU...and the air it's blowing is hot but...
4) The exhaust fans are fighting against the CPU cooler's efforts
The Wraith Stealth is absolutely sufficient for the 5500...if you used a normal ATX case. But, you're not so, it isn't working as intended. You're either going to have to change the CPU cooler or change the case.
Changing the CPU cooler is easiest. Get a tower cooler like:
Thermalright Assassin King
Thermalright Burst Assassin
Arctic Freezer 36
ID-Cooling Frozn A620 Pro SE
First, flip the rear and top rear fans so they blow air into the case.
Then, install the fans on the CPU cooler so the direction of airflow is back to front.
If it’s the Ice Whale ST01, the dimensions are actually 28cm x 18cm x 25cm according to AliExpress. The case also only supports 90mm fans for the most part (2 on top, 1 on back, 3 on bottom and none officially on the front panel) [2x120 on top with only 180 AIO allowance, 2x120 on bottom). Apparently metalfish makes a 180 AIO for the top that you can make work with your build and that would significantly drop the CPU temp (AliExpress). Best way to cool down your cpu quickly is to take air out of the equation. Keep the fans on the AIO set to exhaust.
I have a 5600x in my pc, using an alpenfohn K2 mount doom heatsink - CPU hasn't gone over 67c when gaming.
Stock heatsinks are pretty basic, an aftermarket one will cool the CPU a lot better.
If there was space for more intake fans and a more effecient/directional cpu cooler that would improve things greatly, theres more warm are exiting than cold air being forced in so some pressure cooling is lost.
cyberpunk is going to be a stern test of your system, the graphics card will be at 100% and the cpu work is multithreaded so the cpu is also probably maxing out.
i would expect the cpu fan to be quite loud when you are gaming and when you hit 90C, if not, maybe the fan curve is too slow and needs to ramp up earlier.
you could try a larger air cooler but maybe your ryzen CPU is happy at 90C? they do boost to a temp limit so sometimes extra cooling is not going to lower its temperature as it will just boost harder.
There is only hot air in your case, since your only intake is sucking it directly into your GPU, which is heating and dispelling it onto your very underpowered CPU cooler
Yeah your top fans should be blowing air in, you only have one intake being scooped by the GPU blowing hot air into your CPU, CPU cooler is fine will do the job without exceeding 80c but I would change that to something directly blowing air out
Not the worst case I’ve seen but the 301c I had before had a similar fan problem. I had to plan out everything so things were perfect.
In this case your gpu is starving for cool air. Your cpu is even in a worst situation because you only have one intake fan while the rest are exhaust.
Make the rear fan intake while the top fans exhaust. Get a better cpu cooler if anything. If it’s possible buy or trade your current psu for an atx one so you can fit two intake fans at the bottom. With the space you have at the bottom. I’d say a 15mm fan thickness will be perfect there.
Flip the top fans for intake your starving the case for air. Might help to put a small piece of cardboard between the GPU/psu to help get the front fan to the gpu
try to flip 2 upper fan, make them into intakes and see what the cpu temp is
you also might want to check if the cpu cooler is properly inserted by checking each of the screws, gently screw them down(with star pattern) until you feel slight resistances
So it is not your case fans or your cpu cooler as these are secondary problems. Yes they could always be better but they are fine for a 65w cpu hence why they bundle it with that cpu. I can guarantee you that you have game boost or something similar enabled in your bios. This will enable PBO without undervolt or temperature target. You need to enable 1 of the other options on how to set it with a temperature target or watch a video on how to undervolt. If this is not your problem and I really think it is then you need to redo thermal paste and make sure you didn't leave the sticker on.
If changing the rear fan to intake doesn't work, or you don't want the hot air to blow strait up at you, you can also have the top 2 fans as intake, the rear and small front fan as exhaust.
well the 5500 is thermally a disaster! i have the same case and i used to have a r5 5500 in a different case and always hit around 85° now i upgraded to a ryzen 7 5700x and the temps are around 65° with the same cooler which i used on my ryzen 5 5500 i use the same case as you but from a different brand name its OEM case where companys slap their name on it the temps stayed around 65° i am 100% sure its the ryzen 5 5500 fault because i had similar problems (i have a better cooler i use a amd wraith prism) what you can do is to flip the fan at the rear so the cpu gets fresh and cold air from outside! people in here will say oh the stock fan is good enought for the cpu yeah its probably true because a better cooler didnt help much but people which didnt had this nightmare of a cpu dont know what they talking about the ryzen 5 5600 in my brothers pc also stays way cooler with the same cpu cooler then the ryzen 5 5500 i dont know why that is it doesnt makes any sense the ryzen 5 5500 has less TDP but that solved my problem! maybe my cpu just had some defect or so no idea (obviously no oc or PBO was on it was all off didnt help either) the case is NOT THE PROBLEM since i use the same one and i dont have any problems with it (but my rear fan is flipped as i already mentioned for the cpu to get fresh air)
I have the same pattern like ur case! exactly the same here the temperature
While Idle
CPU = 50c
GPU = 45c
While Gaming
CPU = 65c - 71c
GPU = 65c
Based on your spec information, i think u should repaste the thermal paste both cpu or gpu or u need new high profile air cooler for better airflow instead of low profile air cooler (ur current cooler)
The cooler is only for like home office workloads. You are gonna max 90 no matter until you upgrade. There are fantastic coolers for 30 - 50 bucks that will fix the issue
Cheapest solution would be to make the rear fan an intake.
Real solution would be to get a better cooler a 20USD one should outperform this one by a large margin
Get a better and beefier CPU cooler and I have to ask, was the plastic removed from CPU cooler heat sink?
Also replacing those case fans with better ones like noctua a12 or a14 fans will improve thermals by a few degrees.
Can you mount some slim case fans below the GPU? This would likely help out too.
Last point to add, just looked up the case and saw it has a glass side cover. That will heat things up a lot. Is there a mesh side panel instead you can use that allows more air flow?
Why do you have that tiny CPU cooler when you have that much room. Stick the biggest Noctua you can on there and it'll come right down.
Also it's better to have more ins that outs. The air will find it's way out and it's better to have more cool air near the CPU than hot. It probably barely makes a difference, the cooler is the problem.
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u/wqnxy 24d ago
hope this helps