Is an idle temperature of 66°C for the A10-6800K CPU normal?

Question

I have an A10-6800K CPU and Piriform Speccy says that my CPU temp is 66 celcius in idle, the same goes for HWMonitor.

Is this normal/ideal? I have a Coolermaster V10 with a HAF 932 case.

Answer 1

The A10-6800K is a quad-core 4.1 GHz CPU which sports a 100 watt TDP and draws about 35 W at idle, basically a spiffed-up Trinity chip.

Here is a page that gives some CPU operating temperatures. Under the AMD Trinity heading, you'll find the following figures specifically for the A10-6800K:

Idle temperature: 28 to 35°C
Normal temperature: 50 to 55°C
Max temperature: 74°C

The implication is that your 66°C at idle is quite a long way above normal. In fact, it is about three times as far above ambient as you should be able to expect (assuming ambient 20°C, you're seeing 46°C above ambient rather than up to 15°C above ambient), a fair bit above normal operating temperature, and close enough to the maximum rated temperature that at least I would have some concerns about the longevity of the chip under those circumstances.

At these temperatures, even ambient temperature in the case plays a relatively minor role, although if you do have an appropriate thermometer handy it can't hurt to just measure the temperature inside the case at the same time. I would suspect insufficient heat transfer from the CPU die, or possibly a malfunctioning active cooling system (but then you'd probably know).

Hence, my suggestion is the same as to a recent, similar question: apply new thermal paste first and see if that helps. Remember that ordinary, still air is a great thermal insulator, and in the case of a CPU, what you definitely do not want is a thermal insulator anywhere between the hot CPU die on the one side and the heatsink and fans on the other.

Answer 2

Speccy does not report the correct temperatures for this family of CPUs/APUs.

For instance, my A8-5600K is reported at 80 C by speccy at more or less idle speeds, but Asus AI Suite 3 says it's 46 C.

I think this should explain it:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-2122665/understanding-temperature-amd-cpus-apus.html

They recommend you use AMD Overdrive to check your temperatures, though I have never used it.

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/amd-overdrive