The operating temperature of the processor is how to determine

Probably, all or almost all users daily pay attention to such indicators of the work of their home or working computer, as, say, performance or noise. But, unfortunately, very few know that in addition to visible manifestations of "health" of the PC, there are also manifestations, which can not be noticed without certain tweaks. In particular, this is the operating temperature of the processor and some other components.

Semiconductors, on the basis of which all modern integrated microcircuits are built, are very sensitive to the temperature regime. At a temperature of 90-95 ºС in the semiconductor chip begin to occur irreversible changes, which, albeit not immediately, but still disabling it. If we take into account that, for example, in a processor, the thermal sensor is not located directly in the crystal itself, but slightly 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 ºС. And the operating temperature of the processor is more than 75-80 ºС.

Manufacturers of modern processors have provided enough reliable mechanisms to protect their products from high temperatures. For example, a computer based on the AMD processor simply turns off when the processor reaches a certain temperature. This maximum operating temperature of the processor is set in the BIOS and can vary from 70 to 90 ºС.

Intel is a little more interesting. Starting with the Pentium 4 family of processors, a trotting system is built into the processors. Its essence lies in the fact that the processor, after reaching a certain threshold temperature, starts to skip a part of the cycles in order to reduce its heat release and thereby stop the temperature rise. Of course, with this, and the performance drops. From my experience I will say that it is impossible to work normally for such a machine, but, at least, there is the possibility of correctly shutting down the system. The operating temperature of the processor with which throttling is turned on is also regulated via the BIOS, and can vary within the same limits as that of AMD processors - the shutdown temperature.

In what cases is it necessary to continuously measure the temperature of the processor? Ideally - always. But especially this is true in two cases: you are a "hardcore gamer" or an overclocking fan. In the second case, you should already know everything about temperature measurement, and this article is not for you. But everyone loves to play, including people with a small baggage of computer knowledge.

In fact, you can measure the temperature of the processor only in one way - software. A special program removes information from thermal sensors, and, as a rule, not only from the processor, but also from several others, and then outputs these data in a certain form. For AMD processors, a free utility from the manufacturer called AMD OverDrive is suitable. In addition to tracking temperature indicators, it will provide additional opportunities for owners of video cards on video chips from AMD. Owners of Intel processors can use the utility Real Temp.

In addition to these utilities, "sharpened" for the processors of a certain manufacturer, there is 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 are able to display the current temperature in the system tray, some have gadgets for the Windows Vista / 7 desktop. Of course, you have a processor of the latest model, then the utility should select the latest version, because, as a rule, older versions either do not support new processors, or behave incorrectly.

The operating temperature of the processor during idle time, as a rule, is low, therefore it is not necessary to be guided by this indicator. Much more important is the behavior of the processor "under load." In most cases, these are "heavy" modern 3D games. Therefore, if the temperature monitoring program you choose supports this feature, you should select the logging of the system temperature change in it. This will allow after the end of the mass murder of monsters to check how the basic components of the computer behaved under maximum load.