You might be onto to something with the desk. The very best might offer a 2-3C improvement, but it's usually because the viscosity is so thick it's devilish to apply, and a smooth application always trumps paste brand. I wouldn't worry about paste brand too much. Getting the bracket mounted with the notches up is still a thrice weekly question. Paste and the rear motherboard support bracket are the two most common issues. I did originally mount the bracket wrong but i corrected that and i also have rubber washers on the bracket (Asus Maximus Hero VII), not sure if removing the washers would be helpful? I may have originally used them when the bracket was mounted upside down. I have reseated the cooling blocks multiple times in the paste, it's just hard to know if you've done everything right, i've followed many different guides so it doesn't feel i've done anything wrong. The case comes right up to just underneath where the keyboard and mouse tray is (the shelf on the desk is removed) and the vent for my GPU exhaust is in front of the wood at the back of the desk, i'm wondering if the heat exhausting out of my case isn't getting away sufficiently and thus increasing the ambient around the case? It wasn't particularly hot no, infact i had the window open all day here in the rainy UK :p: i was going to buy some better paste at some point and reseat everything but i'm wondering if my computer desk is a factor in all the issues ive been having? Please see the link $Listers$ It's effectively been like this since i built my system 6 months ago, but various other issues/troubleshooting have stopped me from focusing on it, i have Akasa AK-455 thermal paste on both the H100i on the CPU and the H55 on the GPU, i might add my highest GPU temp was 63c which although is good compared to an air cooled GPU it's still warmer than i think i should be getting. Ha yes, we have been down this road before. Sometimes the AUTO volt setting goes a little overboard, but I would hope not at straight stock settings. I haven't used the 4790k, so I don't know what the nominal voltage should be at 4.0, but the prior suggestion is a good one. If I remember correctly, you have a water cooled GPU, so we can rule out that dumping heat into the radiator. It would be useful to know if your CPU was really running at 60C all day, or whether the 68C was a momentary load spike and average values where substantially lower. There are a couple of AAA games out right now where I have seen people complain about load spikes during particular cut scenes, etc. Some thing with averages or a graph will be useful. Run a more specific temp monitoring program that tracks real time temperature and not just peak values. Even in a mid-size room, running games for a lengthy period of time will transfer a lot of heat into the room unless well ventilated. I had almost summer time room temps in the afternoon. What was your room temperature? It was about 20F warmer than normal in my neighborhood yesterday.
Also, I think we've been down this road before and you know what you're doing with setting things up. How long have you been running this set-up? A less than perfect TIM application would do it, but it would have been evident from the moment you hooked it up. It does seem a little warm, but there are some things to check.