Short version: for people who monitor the temperature of their CPU, how hot does it get when you play FFXIV? Mine seems to be averaging around 71 to 72, and maxing out at around 78 degrees Celsius.
Long version: back in January, I noticed that my PC was getting really, REALLY hot. I installed HWMonitor and found that my CPU was going up above 90 degrees Celsius. My PC has a quad core I5-2500 which has a "max" temperature of 72.6 degrees Celsius. I took several steps to cool things down:
1. Cleaned out the dust from the CPU's stock fan.
2. Replaced the CPU's stock fan with an Arctic Freezer 13 using pre-applied thermal compound that came with the new fan.
3. Re-installed the Arctic Freezer 13 using Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound.
The biggest drop happened with the first step. I saw virtually no change at step 2. Then I saw a small drop with step 3.
At this point, the high temperature is still above what is healthy for my CPU. So I'd like to lower the temperature of my CPU some more if I can reasonably accomplish it. I don't plan to do anything drastic like switch to a water based cooling system to accomplish it.
I know this game is very CPU intensive. Is 72 to 78 C just what I should expect to see? Am I trying to squeeze blood from a turnip trying to get it any cooler? Or is the current temperature a sign that I likely didn't apply the Arctic Silver properly? I did the pea sized drop method.