I'm using a Ryzen 7 9800X3D with an ARCTIC Liquid Freezer III Pro 360mm AIO. When Apex Legends and Marvel Rivals compile shaders during startup, the CPU temperature briefly reaches around 90°C. Once I'm actually playing, it settles between 60–70°C. Is that expected behavior, or should I adjust my cooling or BIOS settings?
2 Answers
That’s generally normal. Shader compilation can push the CPU close to 100% utilization, so temperatures may briefly reach the processor’s configured thermal limit even with a large cooler. Since your gaming temperatures drop back to 60–70°C, there’s no obvious sign of a cooling problem. If you want lower peak temperatures, you can set a PBO thermal limit such as 85°C in the BIOS, though it may slightly reduce performance during heavy workloads.
Shader compilation commonly pushes these CPUs into the mid-80s or higher. Sustained heavy loads can gradually bring the temperature closer to the thermal limit, but the important detail is that yours falls back to normal gaming temperatures afterward. That behavior is expected, so you probably don’t need to change anything unless temperatures remain high during regular gameplay.
Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better. I set the PBO thermal limit to 85°C since I’m still learning about these settings.