OK, I can't actually find what temp it's safe to run my CPU at. All the temp restrictions I can find refer to the ambient case temperature, which is never more than 30C in my case. I've run my 9950 at beyond 70c (core temp. reading) and it seemed to run fine, but I was scared by the supposed 61C limit (which I now find is ambient case temp).

It doesn't matter so much now for my 9950, since I'm buying a Phenom II 955 to replace it. So, what's a safe temp to aim at? I have a decent Zalman cooler (this one: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprod ... =HS-021-ZA) and I plan to OC my CPU from 3.2GHz to 3.4GHz, no further for now.

According to AMD website its 62 degrees

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Ive always found once they go above 120c there tends to be a smoke smell but aim for as low as poss, its always better to be safe than have an expensive paper weight for a few days.

That looks suspiciously like ambient case temp. again.

Ah well I'll just see what happens. If the CPU trips because of temps. I'll just dial it back down. I'm only aiming for a 200Mhz jump initially, shouldn't be too bad.

It does seem quite low but I'm not sure why AMD would publish an ambient case temp on a processor spec sheet.