Hi guys. I recently upgraded my CPU, going from a Ryzen 5 2600X to a Ryzen 9 5950X, while keeping the same motherboard, an Asus Prime X470-Pro. After the upgrade, I noticed that temperatures weren’t looking great, so I decided to change my case (from a Sharkoon TG5 to a Lian Li Lancool 216 — with stock front fans and a Noctua NF-P14s redux 1500 at the back) and cooler (from an Arctic eSports One 33 to an Arctic Freezer III 360 AIO).

Unfortunately, I’m not seeing any improvements. The CPU idles at around 40°–45°C, and just opening Chrome causes an instant temperature spike above 60°C, the fans ramp up, and then after a few seconds it drops back to the 40s.

I'm monitoring the temperature with HWInfo and Speccy. In the BIOS, I enabled the Q-Fan automatic optimization. If it's already hitting 40–45°C idle now, this summer under heavy loads won’t be a good situation for the CPU.

Do you think it could be a temperature monitoring issue? Could it be the motherboard? Could it be the thermal paste? (Although I doubt that, since I had the same temps before with the 5950X + old cooler + Arctic MX4, and now with the 5950X + AIO + MX6 — of course, I always cleaned the CPU thoroughly before reapplying.)

What could be causing this? If you need any more details or info, feel free to ask. Thanks a lot.

 

Could be gaps in the thermal paste. Maybe it doesn't coat the cpu properly. I've had that and re-applying the thermal paste fixed it.

 

hey man how r ya?

did you update the bios? the Q-Fan automatic optimization usually sets the fan curves even slower than default. i set them static. ok i have a single-tower air cooler. with a 360 you shouldn't see around 60c opening only Chrome. the mx6 is top shelf thermal paste. did you remove the plastic from the 360? did you try it with firefox or edge (it's super optimized for windows 11) ? you from Italy , right? (i'm guessing from hwinfo's language). well, pc's are much warmer in hot countries. where do you keep your pc? floor or tabletop? mine is on a glass table. i'm running pbo, cpu and gpu undervolted

 

Last edited: Apr 29, 2025

unless you are mining in the background? ...scan your pc ...but I hope its the thermal paste!

 

40C at idle is not that hot for 5950x. It's a very powerful chip with 16 cores, and high end CPUs do run quite hot. But it also depends on what your ambient temperature is, how hard the fans are working. I also have 5950x, cooled with Noctua NH-D15 G2 LBC, and it idles on average around 33-37C at 20C ambient temperature in the room, and closer to 40 during hot 30C summer. But instantly spiking up to 60 just from opening Chrome is suspicious.

I would check the thermal paste, and make sure that the CPU block is secured properly and has good contact. Usually it's just a bad connection which causes inefficient thermal transfer, happened to me in the past and just reapplying paste and carefully securing the cooler solved the issue with high temps for me in the past.

 

I updated BIOS before installing the new CPU.
yes I removed the plastic from the cooler
I keep my pc on the floor

how?

my concerning is that upgrading with a great case and a very good cooler didn't change the temperature. I was hoping to go down some degrees, but nothing changed. so I thought it could be some measurement issue

 

You probably do not apply the cooler correctly.
go through the instructions again and do it by the book.

Btw 60c is not overheating. 90-100 and thermal throttle is actually expected at high loads

 

too much paste can also be a problem. also you could have a fan failing.
check your heat sink is flat and true, you may have a nick in it, which can be cleaned up with careful use of a sharp razor blade (don't try to take it all down to flat in one scrape, it requires many small scrapes to get a good surface)

look for wires and cabling blocking air flow, try velcro and zip ties to get cables dressed and out of the way. if you have a box fan handy, try letting it blow into the open case and see if the temps change.

also check your voltages if you voltage is too high, your cpu converts it to heat, before it eventually destroys itself.

 

Try undervolting it a bit. It is a tedious process if you want a stable pc, though. I never regret it. Ypi buy a new PC every several years or so. so... take an afternoon off just for that and do it. Undervolting is the best way to keep the temps down. You could potentially gain ~10c even.

To cut down the trial and test time to a reasonable afternoon, search for "Ryzen 9 5950x undervolt" and see what the most common number is. Maybe you can just cut it down 0.10 or 0.15v (just as example) and leave it there.

Run memory test for an hour between tweakings. <-- that's time consuming

 

does undervolting lower the performances?

 

i have this as an energy plan, i recommedn apply this plus, MSI afterburner when u play some games.

EDIT: i have ryzen 5 3600

 

If you're switching from one modern case to another I would not expect any difference in temps, unless you're upgrading from one with very restricted airflow that prioritizes looks over functionality. Modern cases are all pretty decent, and if you're keeping stock fans I would not expect any temperature differences between them that would be outside of margin of error.

You have switched from a lower end 6 core to high end 16 core CPU, it will not behave the same way. Higher temps are to be expected and are normal. Like I said, 40C is fair idle temperature for 5950x and within the norm. 60C is very normal operating temperature for any CPU really. And like Lonely_Avatar said, 90-100C is the point of overheating, below that is fine if your CPU is doing very intensive work over multiple hours.
You have a decent AIO cooler and like I said most likely it's incorrect thermal paste application, or the CPU block is sitting incorrectly and not making proper contact, or both. First place I would check is this.

And overall with cooling your PC you're going to hit diminishing returns really fast. You might be overthinking it, I used to overthink it too. Here's a little offtopic anecdote.
This winter I did a little experiment for the fun of it because I've always been curious about it and I've got a chance to test it, so I did. I removed the side panel, put my PC right next to the window and "stress tested" both CPU and GPU by running Cyberpunk 2077 on highest settings with ray tracing enabled. Ambient temperature of the room was around the usual 20C, temperature outside was -5C. Here's what I found:

• Side panel on, window closed, PC right next to the window literally touching it - 0C difference between this and where it normally sits at my desk.
• Side panel on, window slightly open, PC right next to the window - 0C difference, or so small that it's within margin of error.
  
• Side panel on, window fully open, PC right next to the window - ~3-6C lower temps.
• Side panel off, window fully open, PC right next to the window - ~10-12C lower temperatures with sub zero cold air blowing directly on PC.

Nothing about this is scientific or anything like that, and I did it purely for fun and to satisfy my curiosity, but it made me realise how efficient PC cooling solutions already are and how hard it's going to be to squeeze any more out of it if you're already using decent components, so I'm just not gonna bother with it at all now. My PC is quiet and temps are never the problem. If cold winter air blowing directly on the components only lowers temps by ~10C, it's not even worth trying to do anything else.

 

Last edited: Apr 30, 2025

Did you mess with any processor-to-heat sink changes or remove the processor in any way? If yes, chances are you may have pooched the reapplication of thermal compound between the two surfaces. Might want to revisit that scenario once again. Too much or too little paste can cause a negative thermal xfer between the two surfaces and result in temp anomalies.

 

I have the 5900x. That is the normal operating temp for that chip. There is no problem. The thermal paste is fine, the fans are fine, your mb is fine. You don't need to update BIOS or undervolt anything. If you get above 95C then figure out the problem. 60 is the upper end of the idle temp.

 

The 5000 series is considered normally so hot that AMD tells you to not be scared if it gets up to 99ºC, so I don't think it's anything weird. My room temperature is 23.5ºC and my Ryzen 5600X is sitting at 35 to 40ºC while I type this with nothing else going on. My cooler is a Deepcool LE500, which is pretty much mid range. Your experience is nothing new, just accept that. It took me a while to get used to it after coming from an old i5 that wouldn't go past 60 at load using a Hyper TX3 EVO.

 

depends how far you undervolt it.

 

I’ve got one desktop with the same CPU, decent case, and a 360 AIO. Like some others said, ~40°C idle is normal for the 5K series.

You can use Ryzen Master to monitor temps - it's supposed to be more accurate for these chips.
Also, tweak your fan curves so they don’t ramp up every time it hits 60+, but go full speed around 85-90°C.

A lot of people were freaking out about these temps, so AMD actually made an official statement at some point (can’t find it right now, but I’ll link it if I do).

You can try optimizing some of the stuff others mentioned, and if you manage to stay under 40°C idle(!) (don’t worry about the spikes - it’s just how these chips behave), you’re golden.

 

Modern CPUs have these quick TempSpikes.
I see these 45C to 75C and back in 1 second all time.

Usually happens on Single CPU tasks.

Just limit PBO to 80 and let your motherboard do the rest.
The Auto PBO on my 870E motherboard is doing a better job than manual tuning.

Set the Cooler Profile Manual for Fans to 40-60% until ~65C then let them Rank up and you get a silent PC in most cases.
If the CPU ever reaches 85C let the coolers blow @100%

CPU is safe up to 95C which is not needed in most cases for normal users.

My setting is:

PBO 80C Level 1 - with Boxed AMD Air cooler on a Ryzen 9-7900

should also be close to possible on older AMD´s

 

Please use HW Monitor. www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (Vermeer wie Deine CPU) (reaches 33.4 Celsius when browsing the internet with a browser.
When the browser loads, it briefly rises to 58.6 Celsius and then drops back down to 33.4 Celsius.

Have you updated your BIOS?
Have you updated the latest drivers for your Asus motherboard?

Since your CPU is more powerful than your old CPU, it also generates more heat!

 

thank you guys for all your replies. you made me understand much better! thank you! I'm chill now I'll follow all your suggestions and see what happens, but I got that it's normal. thank you!