kullymontana: The sensors that Intel uses on their CPUs have never been very accurate at reporting idle temperatures and things are probably worse on the new 32nm Core i7-980X, especially when individual cores can go to sleep with little to no power being used for some cores. Accurate idle temperature monitoring is not what Intel designed these sensors for. They were only designed to control thermal throttling and thermal shutdown and for that purpose, they work great.

Comparing two different programs that read totally different sensors is pointless, especially when none of the sensors are calibrated. What's your water temperature near your CPU? The core sensor reading 28C in your picture might be close to the truth.

NathObeaN: I like your style. Your computer is not Prime stable so instead of fixing the problem, you decide it is easier to slag Prime95. Then you're bashing RealTemp and other programs that you know nothing about.

Core temperatures of Intel CPUs can change instantaneously. No two programs are going to be reading the sensors at the exact same time so when lightly loaded, you will see different programs report different temperatures. That doesn't prove anything or mean one program is bad and one is good. When lightly loaded, it usually doesn't mean anything.

The best way to compare the accuracy of core temperature monitoring programs is to run a consistent load like Prime 95 - Small FFTs on each thread and then give the CPU 5 or 10 minutes to stabilize and then you can post a screen shot to show us all these differences you are seeing.

On the newer Core i CPUs, TJMax is written into a register for each core and the temperature sensor data is written into another core. On these CPUs, RealTemp and Core Temp are reading the exact same registers and should be reporting the exact same thing.

Core Temp has also just started using the Intel recommended method to report the multiplier accurately just like RealTemp does. You can download his latest beta here for your comparison:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=488

Some of the other programs you mentioned do not bother reading all 4 cores of a Core i7. One program sometimes only reads 2 of the 4 cores and pretends that it is reading all 4 cores. Maybe when you are testing you will be able to determine what program is doing that.

SkOrPn: CPU-Z has a problem with accurately reporting the multiplier when a Core i CPU is lightly loaded. You might want to try adjusting your C-States as well as the Minimum processor state in the Control Panel -> Power Options to see what's really going on. I know NathObeaN thinks RealTemp is a piece of crap but the multiplier it displays is extremely accurate at idle because it uses the method that Intel recommends in their November 2008 Turbo White Paper. Unlike NathObeanN, the programmer of Core Temp and I actually read junk like that. Don't be afraid to trust what it is telling you or what the latest beta version of CoreTemp is telling you.