Probably, all or almost all users daily pay attention to such performance indicators of their home or work computer as, say, performance or noise. But, unfortunately, very few people know that in addition to the visible manifestations of the "health" of the PC, there are also manifestations that cannot be noticed without certain tricks. In particular, this is the operating temperature of the processor and some other components.
The semiconductors on the basis of which all modern integrated circuits are built are very sensitive to temperature conditions. At a temperature of 90-95 º, irreversible changes begin to occur in the semiconductor chip, which, though not immediately, but nevertheless put it out of order. If we take into account that, say, in the processor the thermal sensor is located not directly in the crystal itself, but a little to the side, then most likely it will show a temperature of 5 degrees lower than the temperature of the semiconductor. Therefore, the maximum temperature of the processor should not rise above 85‑90 º. And the operating temperature of the processor is over 75-80 º.
Manufacturers of modern processors have provided fairly reliable mechanisms for protecting their products from elevated temperatures. For example, a computer based on an AMD processor simply shuts down when the processor reaches a certain temperature. This maximum operating temperature of the processor is set in the BIOS and can range from 70 to 90 º.
Intel is a little more interesting. Starting with the Pentium 4 family of processors, a throttling system is built into the processors. Its essence is that the processor, upon reaching a certain threshold temperature, begins to skip part of the clock cycles in order to reduce its heat generation and thereby stop the temperature increase. Of course, performance also drops. From my own experience I’ll say that it’s impossible to work normally with such a machine, but at least it’s possible to correctly shut down the system. The operating temperature of the processor with which throttling is turned on is also regulated through the BIOS, and can vary within the same limits as AMD processors - the shutdown temperature.
In what cases is a constant measurement of processor temperature required? Ideally, always. But this is especially true in two cases: you are a "hardcore gamer" or a fan of overclocking. In the second case, you should already know everything about measuring temperature, and this article is not for you. But everyone likes to play, including people with a small amount of computer knowledge.
In fact, it is possible to measure the temperature of the processor in only one way - software. A special program removes information from temperature sensors, and, as a rule, not only from the processor, but also from several others, and then displays this data in a certain form. For AMD processors, a free utility from the manufacturer called AMD OverDrive is suitable. In addition to monitoring temperature indicators, it will provide additional opportunities for owners of video cards based on AMD video chips. Intel processor owners can use the Real Temp utility.
In addition to these utilities, "sharpened" under the processors of a particular manufacturer, there are a large number of universal products. This, in particular, CoreTemp, Hardware Sensors Monitor, SpeedFan, HMonitor and many others. Among them there are also free programs that are not inferior in their functionality to paid ones. All these utilities can output the current temperature to the system tray; some of them have gadgets for the Windows Vista / 7 desktop. Of course, you have the processor of the latest model, then you need to select the utility of the latest version, because, as a rule, old versions either do not support new processors or behave incorrectly.
The operating temperature of the processor during downtime is usually low, so you should not focus on this indicator. Much more important is the behavior of the processor "under load". In most cases, these are “heavy” modern 3D games. Therefore, if your chosen temperature monitoring program supports this feature, you should choose to keep a log of the temperature changes in the system. This will allow after the end of the massacre of monsters to check how the main components of the computer behaved under maximum load.