Re: CPU temperature - what's too hot?

I'll try those suggestions, but I just need to clarify that I never mentioned anything about a laptop.

This is a stationary upright gaming PC with two fans (front and back), which can also be regulated manually.

@belpita  Sorry, I saw the words "Acer Predator" and immediately thought "laptop."  Since this is a desktop, you really should have much better cooling than you're getting.  Laptops run hot, but desktops should not, at least not when new with what is presumably a fully working cooling apparatus.

In your position, I'd check all the fans to make sure they're spinning properly and that nothing is in their way, either internally or externally.  If that didn't help, I'd unmount the CPU fan or radiator block, remove the thermal paste (rubbing alcohol works great), apply my own thermal paste (Arctic M4 is $10 or less and works well), reassemble everything, and test again.  There are plenty of YouTube videos demonstrating how to apply thermal paste, and probably one showing how to take apart and reassemble whatever CPU cooler you have.

I put Origin in offline mode and that actually seems to have done the trick. *mumbles something about how useless Origin is*

CPU temp was fluctuating between 53-75C when I played for about 30 minutes a little while ago. 

I literally got the computer two days ago, and I'm sort of getting to know it a bit. But the fans can be set to "automatic" and "gaming", so I'm experimenting a little bit with that for Sims4 in particular. Playing Minecraft works fine, though, as well as some other random Steam games. I'm also going to look into any other possible programme running in the background that can be turned off. 

@belpita  75º C and lower sounds much better, although it still might be a bit hot, depending on the workload of your processor.  It's certainly not concerning though.  Origin itself has been maxing out some players' CPUs lately, for no discernible reason, and often while there's no game running.  Maybe there will be a fix, or maybe the EA Desktop App will show up and be less of a nuisance.  Either way, at least you have a workaround for now.

Oh, well, three weeks later and we're back to temperatures around 80-90C again.

I have Origin in offline mode, ticked off all possible online features within the game AND even went into Task Manager to force close Origin after opening Sims 4. 

I really don't know what to do now. :-/ 

@belpita  Are you noticing high temperatures in any other settings?  How much of your CPU is Origin using when this happens?  It's possible the issue is (now) Sims 4, not Origin.  Regardless, I still think the cooling overall should be better.  Let me know if you're interested in doing any benchmarks to test it.

Additionally, what framerates are you getting in-game?  Limiting fps can lower the CPU load too.  To see your in-game fps, bring up the cheats console (crtl-shift-C) and enter "fps on" without quotes.  A number will appear in the lower left corner of the screen, over the UI.

Fps is usually between 120-160, but occasionally it has dropped to 20, which is probably the CPU overheating. I have then restarted the game and also cleaned the Tray folder for good measure, lol. 

Most settings are set to high, except edge smoothing, which is low. I have full screen on with 1920x1080 resolution. 

Since Origin gets turned off as soon as I start the game, there's really nothing else but to say it has to be Sims 4 itself now. It could be the latest patch, I suppose. 

But to be honest, I'm beginning to wonder if increasing the speed is the issue, which is just going to make the game unplayable. 

@belpita  I still don't think Sims 4 should be coming close to overheating your processor.  It might be that the CPU cooler isn't working as efficiently as it should.  Do you have air or liquid cooling?  How many case fans do you have, intake and outtake?

It would also be good to see a dxdiag on this computer.

https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

If you want to leave the cooling alone for the moment, try limiting your in-game framerates.  If you have a 60 or 75 Hz monitor and play in fullscreen, the vertical sync setting in the game's graphics options should be enough.  Otherwise, you'd need to use another tool, for example the Nvidia Control Panel mentioned earlier.  Fewer frames means less work for the CPU as well as the GPU, and that might bring temperatures back down enough to not be an issue.

I have a 144Hz capable monitor which is running on 60Hz refresh rate, so I don't think the frame rate should be a problem. 

Cooling is by air and there are two fans, back and front. 

Here is a Dxdiag while having Sims 4 open attached. 

@belpita  Your hardware is more than capable of handling Sims 4 on ultra settings at 144 fps, I'm not saying that the workload is stressful.  But more frames per second means more work for the CPU and GPU, and manually limiting framerates will result in a lower total workload, which means less heat produced.  Since your monitor is running at 60 Hz anyway, why not try manually capping fps at 60 and see whether it makes a difference?

Among the ways to do this are through the Nvidia Control Panel.  I already mentioned the Max Frame Rate setting, but here's a screenshot:

Having said that, the cooling on this computer is clearly not sufficient.  An i7-10700 should be able to handle much higher workloads than what Sims 4 is providing, and any computer that has one should accommodate that.  Just in case it's that simple, please double-check that the fans aren't blocked and run properly when you're playing.  But I think that two fans and an air cooler aren't really a good solution for such a powerful CPU.

The high-end Intel 10-series processors run hot for sure.  One of the reasons I wanted to see a dxdiag was that I was hoping Acer would have a BIOS update waiting for you; some motherboard manufacturers have released updates that help the CPU run cooler.  But Acer hasn't done so, as far as I can find, and you might be waiting a while.

If your case has room for more fans, that might be a useful investment.  If not, you may want to reapply the thermal paste between the CPU and cooler.  It's possible it wasn't applied correctly in the first place or that the fan is mounted a bit loose.  Quality thermal paste costs $10 or less, and the isopropyl alcohol to remove the existing coat is even cheaper.

The bottom line is, you shouldn't be seeing these temperatures while playing.