martymonster: I have not yet cut an IHS / heat spreader off.

All temperature measurements have been made with CPU-Z reporting a core voltage of 1.08 volts while usually running at ~1600 MHz. The IR thermometer is pointed at the heat spreader which is covered by a thin piece of masking tape to reduce shine. This seems to improve accuracy and repeatability and after sitting for 8 hours with the power off, there is no difference between measurements of the CPU and the room temperature.

I'm also able to move the thermometer around in search of the maximum temperature so my readings are probably not coming from the geometric center where Intel recommends Tcase readings should be taken.

There are some users that still believe that there is a large temperature difference between where I am measuring and the temperature of the core. I've reduced this difference to a minimum by doing my testing with the computer as close to idle as possible. When a CPU is working, gradients constantly develop from one part of a core to another depending on what type of instructions are being executed but at idle, Intel's own testing has shown that the difference is only about 0.5C which is within the accuracy of my Fluke 62 Infrared thermometer.

No program, including RealTemp, is perfect but I still believe that when calibrated, RealTemp is getting closer to the real core temperature across the entire operating range than any other program is providing.

Here's a test of my E8400:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=573