I have an Intel Core Duo e6550 Processor ... looking at the little booklet that came with it I see that Intel says:

"To ensure that this Intel processor will operate within thermal specifications,an Intel ambient temperature at 38°C is required".

How true is this ?

Looking around via Google, I get the impression that even 60° C is fine.

I am not looking to overclock the thing or anything special.

I just want to run it reliably, and know that I am not doing any damage to it.

So far I've had my PC in for 45 minutes, and the application "Core Temp" says it's already at 38° C.

Err.. when they say Ambient, that's the room temp, or case temp. Since it is air cooled, if your room is for say 90F, dats pretty warm, and your hot air isn't exactly going to cool your CPU at all. The 38C is basically 100F.

And the thermal spec on the proc is 72C. So your bios temp shouldn't exceed 72C.

Desktop Processor E6550

he's right, except 72C instead of F

Eeek.. I hate typo's..

Yeah ... and I'm the one who wrote "Intel ambient" ... of course, I wanted to write "internal ambient".

Regardless, thanks for the info, very much.