Many of us start to panic whenever we see our CPU temperatures creep past 80C, especially while we’re gaming, thinking we’re just a few degrees away from thermal throttling. We’re usually quick to a**ume that the CPU cooler just isn’t good enough, or the thermal paste isn’t doing its job. I used to constantly monitor my temperatures with MSI Afterburner, which only made me more anxious. I’ve even overreacted and tried reseating and reapplying thermal paste a couple of times without realizing that what I was seeing was completely normal CPU behavior.