Effect of room temp on your CPU load temps

[graysky]

I was curious just how much room temperature can affect the temperature of the PC. I chose to look at the CPU since Speedfan can monitor and log temps for each of the 4 cores in my Q6600, and since of all the components, the CPU is probably the most sensitive to changes in air temp. since mine is air cooled.

 

Anyway, I did the same x264.exe encode that I have been doing for all my temperature comparisons and monitored room temp. with a calibrated digital thermometer at several points during each encode. These were averaged and graphed against the averaged reported core temp* values from Speedfan for the entire second pass of a 2-pass x264 encode of the same video file. I was happy to see that for the different room temps used, the increases were pretty linear (certainly within error).

 

Result:

You can see by the slopes of the regression line that every delta

[Crow47]

I don't have any hard evidence for you, but since I moved my comp down into the basement, it's running a good 10C cooler than it was up on the top floor in my room.

[graysky]

I don't have any hard evidence for you, but since I moved my comp down into the basement, it's running a good 10C cooler than it was up on the top floor in my room.

 

Cool (literally)! That would be consistent with these findings as well. We usually keep the place pretty cool in the winter since gas prices are so high; I will say that this past winter my machine ran really cool under full loads. That kinda prompted me to do this experiment to try to understand the effect better.

 

Cheers.

[hardnrg]

an interesting practical experiment

 

it's good that you assessed the temperatures versus ambient... that's the best way to analyse cooling, the rise above or fall below ambient... this delta is consistent, so you can gauge what your load temps will be in summer, if it's winter, or how cold your room would have to be to make your cpu 40

[graysky]

Thanks for the kind words, hardnrg. I'd caution you about extrapolating beyond the upper and lower range of the graph though; it may not continue to be linear.

[Missile Maker]

Room temp has a major effect on computer temps. I live in AZ, and therefore only run my rigs OC'd in the fall, Winter and early spring. Even with air in the summer, we keep the house at 80F (can't afford the electric bills ), and this has a +15C impact on temps. In the cool months, I just need the window open in my office, and room temps run in the 60s - 70s during the day. OC'ing in AZ....it's a Winter Sport!!