Core i7-4770k running Prime95 hot. Is it safe?

[MxPhenom 216]

I guess you're right, I will try to reseat, and apply thermal paste again. Btw, I used X thermal-paste method on CPU, does it work well? I can't see anything under the heatsink. Other steps are logic but only this step, these were my first tries to apply thermal paste.

No. Just do a half an inch line down the CPU then put the cooler on and allow the pressure of the cooler to spread it out. The die is a rectangle shape and vertical, so a line does well. Some do pea sized dot in the center as well and thats fine too.

 

[peche]

No. Just do a half an inch line down the CPU then put the cooler on and allow the pressure of the cooler to spread it out. The die is a rectangle shape and vertical, so a line does well. Some do pea sized dot in the center as well and thats fine too.

for intel core series i'll stick to centered thin line... also a little spread on the cooler... like tinting it! mostly with arctic silver 5 ... tinting is a must for killing curing time!

 

[MxPhenom 216]

for intel core series i'll stick to centered thin line... also a little spread on the cooler... like tinting it! mostly with arctic silver 5 ... tinting is a must for killing curing time!

Its better to look at the shape of the die to decide TIM application method.

Thats also why I dont use arctic silver 5, not only are there better pastes nowadays, they also have 0 curing time.

 

[peche]

Its better to look at the shape of the die to decide TIM application method.

Thats also why I dont use arctic silver 5, not only are there better pastes nowadays, they also have 0 curing time.

thats why i said about center line on core processor series...

Spoiler: see me naked!

 

[flexy]

I am aware this thread is old, but I am replying since I think it's still relevant (if people run old Haswell systems), and I don't think the replies here are accurate.

It's known since Haswell(4770k etc.) came out that these chips run insanely hot. Mid/high 90s in stress testing like Prime or OCCT on air can be normal. (There is a reason why people delidded their chips, which by the way I didn't do because I consider the risk with delidding too high, but that's a different story).

Not only does Haswell like 4770k already run frikcing high out of the box, newer versions of Prime are also using AVX2 calculations which add even more voltage to the chips. This is why you're seeing 100C. While previously, OCCT and Prime95 etc. had been good stress tests, I think they are not any longer. They're really what some call "power viruses" which don't do anything ore than putting extremely unrealistic load and heat on your chip, like you would not ever see in real life. And if you won't ever see such load on your CPU in real life, why would you want to run these tools?

For Haswell CPUs like 4770k, there are better stress tests out which are still stressing your CPU good for testing, but without the insane temps that Prime etc generate:
A good one is X264 stability test, or ASUS RealBench (which also includes X264 encoding as a test), or the stability tests from Intel XTU.

I can run any of these fine, with X264 test etc. putting my 4770k near low 90s. in OCCT it would crash after 2 minutes (I have a bad chip and can't put more than 1.250V on it for 4.4Ghz otherwise temps will go into insane regions). Yet, my system runs absolutely fine now for more than 5 years. Saying: DON'T run pointless tress tests like OCCT or Prime95, unless you want to measure "how hot your CPU can get" <-- because this is essentially all they do. So run X264 stability test or Intel XTU, and just ignore OCCT, IMHO. Otherwise it will just drive you insane with the temps because Haswell WILL get fricking hot.

 

[AmioriK]

Saying: DON'T run pointless tress tests like OCCT or Prime95, unless you want to measure "how hot your CPU can get" <-- because this is essentially all they do. So run X264 stability test or Intel XTU, and just ignore OCCT, IMHO. Otherwise it will just drive you insane with the temps because Haswell WILL get fricking hot.

Unless you're going to be spending a lot of time trying to find that mersenne prime

 

[MrGenius]

You don't need to worry about temps. Modern CPUs are fully protected from harmful temps. If they run too hot they'll either throttle to cool themselves down, or shut down completely. The whole "are my temps too high?" paranoia is ridiculous. High temps don't kill CPUs(or GPUs, or any similar piece of hard silicon circuitry for that matter). Period. End of story.