Passive cooling my i5

Pylor

Ok so to the naysayers:
1. I am quoting core temperatures
2. We are talking a 35w processor which has a max temp of 105C before throttling.
3. Why would I bother with prime? This chip isn't going to see load like that in its current purpose, it will spike but it won't be continuous heavy load.

35w TDP is low, I agree, but you're talking about 35w in dead air if you have zero fans whatsoever. The i7 3630qm in my laptop is only a little higher at 45w, but as soon as windows update kicks the cpu usage up to 10% the fan has to kick on to keep it from going over 70C (this thing weighs 10 pounds just from the copper in the heatpipes). I'm not trying to be a debbie downer, I just think you should be aware of what the temperatures can get up to in that configuration should something happen. Say a bug is introduced in a package, or you decide to download a new one that looks fun without realizing how much CPU it uses. Suddenly your CPU usage is spiking and that thing is sitting at 85C regularly and dipping higher. I'd just tend to error on the side of caution, but I'm also the person with 2 very quiet CPU fans on my heatsink in a push/pull just incase one of them fails (which has happened, bearings don't last forever). Passive cooling can be neat, I agree, but is there a particular reason you'd prefer no internal fan whatsoever? Dust sucks, I agree with that, but dust filters are cheap and there are thousands of silent fans out there.

In the end, it's your equipment, and I'm just offering an opinion!

@kejianshi:

I think I trust the intel chip site more…

40C won't break it but if you are really seeing 60C, I don't think thats great.

Intel site list's TCASE, TCASE is from the IHS and can't be 100% accurately measured after the product leaves the factory. Using the Tjunction and core temps is the way to go. OP looks like he's actually running the core temp program which is my personal preference as well. Are you running pfsense through hyper-v OP?

messerchmidt

add a casefan if you do not want to add a case and cpu fan. blow it out with compressed air once in awhile