High CPU Temps While Recording?

[Shelleen]

I’m trying to find out if my CPU and GPU are gunning at dangerous temperatures when I record long homemade moves (some an hour or two long). I apologize if I missed the answer to this question but I really did search here and on the internet. I got a lot of information which talked a lot about TCase vs Tjunction (I’m still not sure which one reads higher and which one reads lower). I’m hoping for a more understandable answer here. I ran Libre Hardware Monitor while making a recording with OBS and got these numbers:

CPU
Core1 – 95C Value, 98C Max
Core2 – 93C Value, 98C Max
Core3 – 92C Value, 98C Max
Core4 – 90C Value, 95C Max

Does the “Value” mean what the current temp. is and the Max the highest it got or the highest it should go? Are these values really high or are they within a safe range for sustained recording of say 2 hours. I have read in several places that the max temperature for an average i5 CPU is around 85C and critical is anything over 100C.

Any information on this subject will be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Here is some information on the old computer I’m using that I built as a gaming computer years ago.

My Computer: Win Home 10. Older Intel Quad Core i5-2500 3.30 gHz, with ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series 8GB. Recording to Seagate Backup Plus 2TB External Drive on USB 3.0.

OBS Settings:
Output/Recording: MPEG-4, x264, CoreAudio AAC, CRF, 22, 2s, very fast, high, None.
Audio: 44.1 kHz, Stereo
Video: Base - 1920x1080, Output - 1920x1080, FPS - 30

 

[TryHD]

maybe the thermal paste dried out after all this years or you use the boxed cooler for which the temps are normal?

 

[rockbottom]

Seems hot for an i5, my 6700k running Cinebench stress & stability tests runs cooler (89C Average) & I'm only using a 120mm POS Corsair AIO on that system.

 

[Shelleen]

Thanks for the replies. It's a 12 year old computer but I built it as a gaming computer so it still runs decent. I wasn't sure how much pressure OBS put on the CPU and GPU when doing this type of recording and it looks like it's quite a lot. TryHD, I didn't think of the thermal paste going bad but I did think I may need a better CPU cooler than the stock Intel one so I put a better CPU cooler on and cleaned out the dust clogged GPU cooler. That did the trick. I tried a test recording yesterday and Max temperature that it hit on the four cores was around 75C. That's a heck of a lot better then the 98C it hit before the computer starting throttling things down. I think I decreased the life expectancy of this old computer by stressing it out like that, since I recorded around 20 videos. This was a good experience for me though since I learned a little more about recording with OBS and made me think more about what recording settings to use. Thanks for your replies guys.

 

[qhobbes]

I would recommend using ThrottleStop with the Disable Turbo option. Does that computer have a video port for onboard graphics? Does OBS have a QSV option for the video encoder?

 

[AaronD]

I would recommend using ThrottleStop with the Disable Turbo option.

Looks like a nominally useful utility, but also easily abused. Does it refuse to melt the CPU? Force throttling anyway at some temperature threshold? Or will it happily destroy your hardware if you tell it to, out of ignorance to what you're actually doing?

 

[R1CH]

No modern CPU can be damaged through manipulating turbo frequencies. Only voltage adjustments are risky. Running at 75c is a bit higher than I would like but well within spec for an i5-2500.