All,

Just got finished building a couple of days ago. Here's what I got:

Antec Sonata II w/ stock power supply
Asus A8N-SLI Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800
Zalman CNPS9500 LED
Arctic Silver 5
74 GB raptor
250 WD SATA
2 GB Corsair DDR400
BFG 7800 GT OC
NEC DVDR
LiteOn DVD

I think those are the relative components and maybe a few extra... I just couldn't help it . The build went very smooth nothing but five stars for all of these components, I would definitely recommend them to anyone. At this point I am a little concerned with temperature. Right now my cpu stays between 37C - 39C idle (usually closer to 37) and 44C - 49C max load. I have read on the forums of people getting 20C idle and 40C under max load. Are these numbers realistic ? Any tips for getting my temps down? I've read that AS5 needs 200 hours to "set"... is that a factor? What are the typical / acceptable ranges for an Athlon 64 X2 3800?

Another concern is that I have not started overclocking yet... and am worried about my temps getting any higher then they already are.

Many thanks in advance!
BigTech

Arctic silver takes a number of heat cycles (heating and cooling down again) to "cure". when it is fully cured the temp will drop a bit ,mine droped a sweet 6 C.

Also your ambient(room) temps may not be the same as the other posters posting thier temps. A general rule of thumb to be sure if your temps are too high and not just that your room temp itself is high is-
" Motherboard(NOTE-not CPU) temp shouldnt be more than 10C above the ambient.
Example- if your ambient is 27C and you motherboard temp is 32 , you actually have a better cooling system tham a person with a motherboard temp of 30C but ambitent of 19C.

i hope i made sense to you

Thanks for the posts. What I am really looking for is what is the best range to be in? What is a realistic temperature range to shoot for with the components I have. I understand what you mean with the outside influences, but I am still wondering all things being equal, what range can be considered acceptable? I have not started overclocking yet... and like I said I am running at 37C idle and 45C - 49C max load... Should I be concerned with these temps? What is a temp that I should say I will never go above?

Thanks,

Try this link:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processor [...] 17,00.html

in those files "case temprature" is the maximum safe operating temp of the cpu.

or this link:
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/
according to which, max safe temprature for your CPU is 71c